Health and medicine is more than just biological – societal forces can get under your skin and cause illness. Medical sociologists like me study these forces by treating society itself as our laboratory. Health and illness are our experiments in uncovering meaning, power and inequality, and how it affects all parts of a person’s life.

For example, why do low-income communities continue to have higher death rates, despite improved social and environmental conditions across society? Foundational research in medical sociology reveals that access to resources like money, knowledge, power and social networks strongly affects a person’s health. Medical sociologists have shown that social class is linked to numerous diseases and mortality, including risk factors that influence health and longevity. These include smoking, overweight and obesity, stress, social isolation, access to health care and living in disadvantaged neighborhoods.

Moreover, social class alone cannot explain such health inequalities. My own research examines how inequalities related to social class, race and gender affect access to autism services, particularly among single Black mothers who rely on public insurance. This work helps explain delays in autism diagnosis among Black children, who often wait three years after initial parent concerns before they are formally diagnosed. White children with private insurance typically wait from 9 to 22 months depending on age of diagnosis. This is just one of numerous examples of inequalities that are entrenched in and deepened by medical and educational systems.

Medical sociologists like me investigate how all of these factors interact to affect a person’s health. This social model of illness sees sickness as shaped by social, cultural, political and economic factors. We examine both individual experiences and societal influences to help address the health issues affecting vulnerable populations through large-scale reforms.

By studying the way social forces shape health inequalities, medical sociology helps address how health and illness extend beyond the body and into every aspect of people’s lives.

Origins of Medical Sociology in the US

Medical sociology formally began in the U.S after World War II, when the National Institutes of Health started investing in joint medical and sociological research projects. Hospitals began hiring sociologists to address questions like how to improve patient compliance, doctor-patient interactions and medical treatments.

However, the focus of this early work was on issues specific to medicine, such as quality improvement or barriers to medication adherence. The goal was to study problems that could be directly applied in medical settings rather than challenging medical authority or existing inequalities. During that period, sociologists viewed illness mostly as a deviation from normal functioning leading to impairments that require treatment.

For example, the concept of the sick role – developed by medical sociologist Talcott Parsons in the 1950s – saw illness as a form of deviance from social roles and expectations. Under this idea, patients were solely responsible for seeking out medical care in order to return to normal functioning in society.

In the 1960s, sociologists began critiquing medical diagnoses and institutions. Researchers criticized the idea of the sick role because it assumed illnesses were temporary and did not account for chronic conditions or disability, which can last for long periods of time and do not necessarily allow people to deviate from their life obligations. The sick role assumed that all people have access to medical care, and it did not take into account how social characteristics like race, class, gender and age can influence a person’s experience of illness.

Parsons’ sick role concept also emphasized the expertise of the physician rather than the patient’s experience of illness. For example, sociologist Erving Goffman showed that the way care is structured in asylums shaped how patients are treated. He also examined how the experience of stigma is an interactive process that develops in response to social norms. This work influenced how researchers understood chronic illness and disability and laid the groundwork for later debates on what counts as pathological or normal.

In the 1970s, some researchers began to question the model of medicine as an institution of social control. They critiqued how medicine’s jurisdiction expanded over many societal problems – such as old age and death – which were defined and treated as medical problems. Researchers were critical of the tendency to medicalize and apply labels like “healthy” and “ill” to increasing parts of human existence. This shift emphasized how a medical diagnosis can carry political weight and how medical authority can affect social inclusion or exclusion.

The critical perspective aligns with critiques from disability studies. Unlike medical sociology, which emerged through the medical model of disease, disability studies emerged from disability rights activism and scholarship. Rather than viewing disability as pathological, this field sees disability as a variation of the human condition rooted in social barriers and exclusionary environments. Instead of seeking cures, researchers focus on increasing accessibility, human rights and autonomy for disabled people.

A contemporary figure in this field was Alice Wong, a disability rights activist and medical sociologist who died in November 2025. Her work amplified disabled voices and helped shaped how the public understood disability justice and access to technology.

Structural Forces Shape Health and Illness

By focusing on social and structural influences on health, medical sociology has contributed significantly to programs addressing issues like segregation, discrimination, poverty, unemployment and underfunded schools.

For example, sociological research on racial health disparities invite neighborhood interventions that can help improve overall quality of life by increasing the availability of affordable nutritious foods in underserved neighborhoods or initiatives that prioritize equal access to education. At the societal level, large-scale social policies such as guaranteed minimum incomes or universal health care can dramatically reduce health inequalities.

Medical sociology has also expanded the understanding of how health care policies affect health, helping ensure that policy changes take into account the broader social context. For example, a key area of medical sociological research is the rising cost of and limited access to health care. This body of work focuses on the complex social and organizational factors of delivering health services. It highlights the need for more state and federal regulatory control as well as investment in groups and communities that need care the most.

Modern medical sociology ultimately considers all societal issues to be health issues. Improving people’s health and well-being requires improving education, employment, housing, transportation and other social, economic and political policies.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Surge That Shattered New Orleans

On Aug. 29, 2005, early reports claimed New Orleans had “dodged the bullet.” But offshore winds funneled water into the city’s canals, triggering multiple catastrophic levee failures. The Lower Ninth Ward, where most fatalities occurred, was devastated as many residents, misled by comparisons to Hurricane Camille, chose not to evacuate. 

“Katrina’s storm surge was exceptional,” says Hermann Fritz, a civil engineering professor at Georgia Tech. “In some areas, we saw water levels over 27 feet — that’s like a three-story building.”

While much attention focused on New Orleans’ levee failures, Fritz points out that the surge’s sheer height and energy would have overwhelmed even more robust defenses in some areas. “Katrina showed us that nature can produce forces beyond our engineering designs,” he says.

A Disaster of Inequality

The storm didn’t strike evenly; it exposed and deepened existing social and economic inequalities. “The disaster hit lower-income Black neighborhoods hardest,” says Allen Hyde, associate professor of history and sociology. He notes how years of segregation, disinvestment, and discriminatory housing policies left these communities uniquely vulnerable. Hyde continues, “Many homes were in low-lying, flood-prone areas, and residents often lacked access to reliable transportation, making evacuation difficult or impossible.”

Georgia’s Changing Landscape: Migration and Impact

Katrina displaced hundreds of thousands and claimed a staggering toll of more than 1,800 lives. Georgia quickly absorbed many evacuees, reshaping its demographics and infrastructure. “Hurricane Katrina led to one of the largest displacements of people due to a natural disaster,” says Shatakshee Dhongde, a professor of economics. “It changed the demographics of Georgia in measurable ways, from school enrollment to the labor market.”

The U.S. Census Bureau tracked this migration, noting spikes in Louisiana-born residents in metro Atlanta. Local school districts enrolled hundreds of new students almost overnight, while housing markets saw increased demand from families looking for permanent homes. The arrival of so many displaced residents didn’t just strain schools and housing — it reshaped the state’s economy. Dhongde notes that evacuees often brought new skills, business ideas, and networks. At the same time, the state and local governments faced the financial burden of expanding social services, healthcare, and housing assistance. 

Dhongde adds, “The impact of a disaster doesn’t stop at the water’s edge. It travels with people, and those effects can last for years.” While the influx strained services, it also enriched Georgia’s cultural and economic fabric.

Hyde notes, “Gentrification made many neighborhoods unaffordable for former residents,” and adds that many Black evacuees didn’t return to New Orleans due to economic barriers and post-Katrina gentrification. Cultural communities scattered across cities like Atlanta, Houston, and Baton Rouge.

Lessons the Levees Still Teach

For Fritz, Katrina remains a wake-up call for coastal preparedness.  “We can’t stop hurricanes,” he says, “but we can improve how we design and maintain our defenses, and how we evacuate people before it’s too late.” He warns that climate change, with its potential to intensify storms, makes those improvements even more urgent.

Dhongde sees a parallel need for social and economic planning. “Disaster preparedness isn’t just about sandbags and levees,” she says. “It’s also about ensuring the communities receiving evacuees have the resources and support systems to integrate them successfully.”

Finally, Hyde stresses the importance of engaging youth and communities in preparedness efforts. “Youth advocacy programs, like those we’re piloting in Georgia, empower young people in marginalized neighborhoods with knowledge and agency to build long-term resilience. Disaster planning must be a community effort, inclusive and forward-looking.”

On Nov. 5 – 6, Georgia Tech hosted the Pediatric Healthcare Innovation Summit 2025 (PHIS), a one-of-a-kind event that brought champions of children’s health together to share knowledge, facilitate collaborative initiatives, and accelerate medical innovation. The summit was co-presented by the Georgia Tech Pediatric Innovation Network (PIN), the International Society for Pediatric Innovation (ISPI), and the FDA-funded Pediatric Device Consortia (PDC).

The event included a tour of the new Arthur M. Blank Hospital, technology showcases, workshops, panel discussions, a poster session, and a pitch competition where companies were awarded funding from the Pediatric Device Consortia. 

“Georgia Tech is committed to advancing medicine, but in particular pediatric medicine, which is normally underfunded compared to adult healthcare,” Georgia Tech President Ángel Cabrera said. “We are committed to playing our part, and we're doing that in partnership with the best organizations, combining our engineering skills with clinical partners who understand the most important needs of children.”

Cabrera was a guest speaker for the event, which took place at two locations across campus: the newly opened Science Square and the Historic Academy of Medicine. He emphasized that championing causes such as pediatric healthcare innovation not only aligns with Georgia Tech’s mission, but also with the vision surrounding the new infrastructure being built across campus.

“We're committed to turning our city and our neighborhood into a hub of innovation, and the area of life sciences is one of those areas that we are supporting — including our new Science Square neighborhood, which is devoted to precisely this,” he said.

Though industry events happen every year, what makes PHIS unique is its goal of uniting not only clinicians and healthcare administrators, but also researchers, investors, and entrepreneurs.  Attendees are united around a shared goal of solving systemic problems and, ultimately, saving and improving the lives of children. Julia Kubanek, Georgia Tech’s Vice President for Interdisciplinary Research, said that this collaborative approach provides a unique opportunity to progress ideas and technologies that impact the industry.

“Particularly in the pediatric space, the market is relatively small. When you have a specialized pediatric technology, it's sometimes difficult to get the resources to advance that into clinical trials and into products that can go to market,” she said. “This environment that the summit creates is a supportive one for solving those problems and advancing life-saving research.”

While this was the third year that the event featured a pitch competition, it was the first year that winners were awarded monetary prizes. By bringing startups and investors together, the PHIS plays a vital role in getting impactful research from conceptual to consumer ready. This year’s winners included: Luminoah in first place, Rhaeos in second, and AcQumen Medical in third.

Though the event does encourage friendly competition, the ultimate goal remains to improve the lives of children and their families through collaboration, thought leadership, and innovation.

“Our north star is taking care of children,” Anthony Chang, founder of ISPI, said in his opening remarks. “I think we underestimate how much we learn together. I look at our jobs not as jobs but as a special calling — taking care of children.”

In addition to PIN, ISPI, and PDC, the event was sponsored by Georgia Tech’s Office of Corporate Engagement, Shriner’s Children’s Research Institute, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, the Georgia Department of Economic Development, the Georgia Research Alliance, and the International Children’s Advisory Network, among others.

The fellowship, a joint initiative of the United Nations Academic Impact and the Millennium Campus Network, empowers undergraduates around the world to design and lead social impact projects.

Ekwegh’s project, titled Bridging Energy Infrastructure for Sustainable Urban Development, explores ways to connect new and old technologies so cities can evolve without leaving people or infrastructure behind.

Her inspiration for the project comes from her experience growing up in Nigeria, where power outages and generator pollution were a daily challenge.

Read more on the ME School Page

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Jennifer Kim and Mark Riedl recently received a $500,000 NSF grant to develop large language models (LLMs) that provide strength-based job coaching for autistic job seekers. 

The two Georgia Tech researchers work with Heather Dicks, a career development advisor in Georgia Tech’s EXCEL program, and other nonprofit organizations to provide job-seeking resources to autistic people.

Dicks said the average job search for people with autism can take three to six months in a good economy. It can take up to 18 months in a bad one. However, the new LLMs from Georgia Tech could help to reduce stress and fast-track these job seekers into employment.

Kim is an assistant professor who specializes in human-computer interaction technology that benefits neurodivergent people. Riedl is a professor and an expert in the development of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technologies.

The team’s goal is to identify job-search pain points and understand how job coaches create better employment prospects for their autistic clients.

“Large-language models have an opportunity to support this kind of work if we can have more data about each different individual strength,” Kim said.

“We want to know what worked for them in specific settings at work, what didn’t work, and what kind of accommodations can better help them. That includes how they should prepare for interviews, how they can better represent their skills, how they can address accommodations they need, and how to write a cover letter. It’s a broad range.”

Dicks has advocated for neurodivergent people and helped them find employment for 20 years. She worked at the Center for the Visually Impaired in Atlanta before coming to Georgia Tech in 2017.

She said most nonprofits that support neurodivergent people offer career development programs and many contract job coaches, but limited coach availability often leads to long waitlists. However, LLMs could fill this availability gap to address the immediate needs of job seekers who may not have access to a job coach.

“These organizations often run at a slow pace, and there’s high turnover,” Dicks said. “An AI tool could get the job seeker quicker support. Maybe they don’t even need to wait on the government system.

“If they’re on a waitlist, it can help the user put together a resume and practice general interview questions. When the job coach is ready to work with them, they’re able to hit the ground running.”

Nailing the Interview

Dicks said the job interview is one of the biggest challenges for people with autism.

“They have trouble picking up on visual and nonverbal cues — the tone of the interview, figuring out the nuances that a question is hinting at,” she said. “They’re not giving the warm and fuzzy vibes that allow them to connect on a personal level.”

That’s why Kim wants the models to reflect a strength-based coaching approach. Strength-based coaching is particularly effective for individuals with autism. Many possess traits that employers value. These include:

• Close attention to detail
• Strong technical proficiency
• Unique problem-solving perspectives

“The issue is that they don’t know how these strengths can be applied in the workplace,” Kim said. “Once they understand this, they can communicate with employers about their strengths and the accommodations employers should provide to the job seeker so they can successfully apply their skills at work.”

Handling Rejection

Still, Kim understands that candidates will need to handle rejection to make it through the search process. She envisions LLMs that help them refocus their energy and regain their confidence after being turned down.

“When you get a lot of rejection emails, it’s easy to feel you’re not good enough,” she said. “Being constantly reminded about your strengths and their prior successes can get them through the stressful job-seeking process.”

Dicks said the models should also be able to provide feedback so that candidates don’t repeat mistakes.

“It can tell them what would’ve been a better answer or a better way to say it,” Dicks said. “It can also encourage them with reminders that you get 100 noes before you get a yes.”

You’re Hired, Now What?

Dicks said the role of a job coach doesn’t end the moment a client is hired. Government-contracted job coaches may work with their clients for up to 90 days after they start a new job to support their transition.

However, she said, sometimes that isn’t enough. Many companies have probationary periods exceeding three months. Autistic individuals may struggle with on-the-job training or communicating what accommodations they need from their new employer. 

These are just a few gaps an AI tool can fill for these individuals after they’re hired.

“I could see these models evolving to being supportive at those critical junctures of the probationary period being over or the one-year job review or the annual evaluation that everyone dreads,” she said.

Dicks has an average caseload of 15 students, whom she assists in landing jobs and internships through the EXCEL program.

EXCEL provides a mentorship program for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities from the time they set foot on campus through graduation and beyond.

For more information and to apply, visit EXCEL’s website.

Despite the nursery rhyme about three blind mice, mouse eyesight is surprisingly sensitive. Studying how mice see has helped researchers discover unprecedented details about how individual brain cells communicate and work together to create a mental picture of the visual world.

I am a neuroscientist who studies how brain cells drive visual perception and how these processes can fail in conditions such as autism. My lab “listens” to the electrical activity of neurons in the outermost part of the brain called the cerebral cortex, a large portion of which processes visual information. Injuries to the visual cortex can lead to blindness and other visual deficits, even when the eyes themselves are unhurt.

Understanding the activity of individual neurons – and how they work together while the brain is actively using and processing information – is a long-standing goal of neuroscience. Researchers have moved much closer to achieving this goal thanks to new technologies aimed at the mouse visual system. And these findings will help scientists better see how the visual systems of people work.

The Mind in the Blink of an Eye

Researchers long thought that vision in mice appeared sluggish with low clarity. But it turns out visual cortex neurons in mice – just like those in humans, monkeys, cats and ferrets – require specific visual features to trigger activity and are particularly selective in alert and awake conditions.

My colleagues and I and others have found that mice are especially sensitive to visual stimuli directly in front of them. This is surprising, because mouse eyes face outward rather than forward. Forward-facing eyes, like those of cats and primates, naturally have a larger area of focus straight ahead compared to outward-facing eyes.

This finding suggests that the specialization of the visual system to highlight the frontal visual field appears to be shared between mice and humans. For mice, a visual focus on what’s straight ahead may help them be more responsive to shadows or edges in front of them, helping them avoid looming predators or better hunt and capture insects for food.

Importantly, the center of view is most affected in aging and many visual diseases in people. Since mice also rely heavily on this part of the visual field, they may be particularly useful models to study and treat visual impairment.

A Thousand Voices Drive Complicated Choices

Advances in technology have greatly accelerated scientific understanding of vision and the brain. Researchers can now routinely record the activity of thousands of neurons at the same time and pair this data with real-time video of a mouse’s face, pupil and body movements. This method can show how behavior interacts with brain activity.

It’s like spending years listening to a grainy recording of a symphony with one featured soloist, but now you have a pristine recording where you can hear every single musician with a note-by-note readout of every single finger movement.

Using these improved methods, researchers like me are studying how specific types of neurons work together during complex visual behaviors. This involves analyzing how factors such as movement, alertness and the environment influence visual activity in the brain.

For example, my lab and I found that the speed of visual signaling is highly sensitive to what actions are possible in the physical environment. If a mouse rests on a disc that permits running, visual signals travel to the cortex faster than if the mouse views the same images while resting in a stationary tube – even when the mouse is totally still in both conditions.

In order to connect electrical activity to visual perception, researchers also have to ask a mouse what it thinks it sees. How have we done this?

The last decade has seen researchers debunking long-standing myths about mouse learning and behavior. Like other rodents, mice are also surprisingly clever and can learn how to “tell” researchers about the visual events they perceive through their behavior.

For example, mice can learn to release a lever to indicate they have detected that a pattern has brightened or tilted. They can rotate a Lego wheel left or right to move a visual stimulus to the center of a screen like a video game, and they can stop running on a wheel and lick a water spout when they detect the visual scene has suddenly changed.

Mice can also use visual cues to focus their visual processing to specific parts of the visual field. As a result, they can more quickly and accurately respond to visual stimuli that appear in those regions. For example, my team and I found that a faint visual image in the peripheral visual field is difficult for mice to detect. But once they do notice it – and tell us by licking a water spout – their subsequent responses are faster and more accurate.

These improvements come at a cost: If the image unexpectedly appears in a different location, the mice are slower and less likely to respond to it. These findings resemble those found in studies on spatial attention in people.

My lab has also found that particular types of inhibitory neurons – brain cells that prevent activity from spreading – strongly control the strength of visual signals. When we activated certain inhibitory neurons in the visual cortex of mice, we could effectively “erase” their perception of an image.

These kinds of experiments are also revealing that the boundaries between perception and action in the brain are much less separate than once thought. This means that visual neurons will respond differently to the same image in ways that depend on behavioral circumstances – for example, visual responses differ if the image will be successfully detected, if it appears while the mouse is moving, or if it appears when the mouse is thirsty or hydrated.

Understanding how different factors shape how cortical neurons rapidly respond to visual images will require advances in computational tools that can separate the contribution of these behavioral signals from the visual ones. Researchers also need technologies that can isolate how specific types of brain cells carry and communicate these signals.

Data Clouds Encircling the Globe

This surge of research on the mouse visual system has led to a significant increase in the amount of data that scientists can not only gather in a single experiment but also publicly share among each other.

Major national and international research centers focused on unraveling the circuitry of the mouse visual system have been leading the charge in ushering in new optical, electrical and biological tools to measure large numbers of visual neurons in action. Moreover, they make all the data publicly available, inspiring similar efforts around the globe. This collaboration accelerates the ability of researchers to analyze data, replicate findings and make new discoveries.

Technological advances in data collection and sharing can make the culture of scientific discovery more efficient and transparent – a major data informatics goal of neuroscience in the years ahead.

If the past 10 years are anything to go by, I believe such discoveries are just the tip of the iceberg, and the mighty and not-so-blind mouse will play a leading role in the continuing quest to understand the mysteries of the human brain.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Today, Matisoff continues research activities in this space and also directs a professional master’s program whose graduates help implement environmental policies in the public and private sector. Soon after joining the Georgia Tech faculty in 2009, he began to focus on market transformation through regulation, government subsidies and other financial incentives. 

This led to an award-winning 2023 book about the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification program. It sparked the construction industry’s green building movement and incentivized early adopters of sustainable technology to create new supply chains. For Matisoff, LEED is a perfect example of using governance as a lever for environmental change. 

Read Full Story on the EPIcenter Webpage

Roberts began his path into T&E in the United States Army. A graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point with a degree in electrical engineering, he served as a Signal Corps officer with assignments at Fort Gordon, Georgia, and in Kaiserslautern, Germany. As a platoon leader and company commander, he led an operational test of the Tactical Automated Switching System. This was his first exposure to formal operational testing and the realities of fielding new communications technology for soldiers.

The Army later sent Roberts to graduate school at Georgia Tech for advanced study in electrical engineering. This was followed by a teaching tour at West Point. As an Associate Professor and later course director for a senior-level two-semester electronics sequence, he strengthened both his technical depth and his ability to communicate complex concepts to the next generation of Army officers.

When his active-duty commitment ended, Roberts transitioned to the Army Reserve. He attended a Georgia Tech alumni job fair in Atlanta. That event led him to GTRI, where he joined as an associate project director on what was then the largest project ever awarded to the Institute. This project involved a threat radar system intended as a test asset for the T&E community. The role immersed him in the operations and needs of major ranges such as China Lake, the Nevada Test and Training Range, and Eglin Air Force Base. It also set the course for a career spent designing and delivering advanced test capabilities.

Roberts helped guide a broader shift in how threat systems are developed for T&E. Early in his GTRI career, teams focused on highly specialized single-threat "point solutions" that were extremely accurate but time-consuming and expensive to build. Today, he advocates and leads work toward modular and open architecture radar systems. These can be reconfigured to emulate multiple threats using shared hardware and powerful software-defined back ends. This approach improves agility and helps keep pace with rapid advances in adversary systems.

Beyond his technical leadership, Roberts has been a central figure in ITEA. He is a past president of the association and has been actively involved since the early 1990s. Over the decades, he has championed the importance of professional societies in helping T&E practitioners share lessons learned, grow their networks, and advance their careers. He has also been a vocal advocate for bringing more early-career engineers and scientists into the T&E profession. He continues to encourage embedding systems engineering and T&E thinking throughout the system development lifecycle.

In its statement on the award, ITEA said “With nearly five decades of dedicated service to our Nation, including over 30 years of continuous and influential involvement in test and evaluation, Rusty Roberts stands as a national asset to the T&E profession and a treasured member of the ITEA family.”

Roberts' career highlights Georgia Tech and GTRI's long-standing role in advancing the science and practice of test and evaluation.

Writer: Christopher Weems
GTRI Communications
Georgia Tech Research Institute
Atlanta, Georgia

About the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI)
The Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) is the nonprofit, applied research division of the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech). Founded in 1934 as the Engineering Experiment Station, GTRI has grown to more than 3,000 employees, supporting eight laboratories in over 20 locations around the country and performing more than $919 million of problem-solving research annually for government and industry. GTRI's renowned researchers combine science, engineering, economics, policy, and technical expertise to solve complex problems for the U.S. federal government, state, and industry.

Greene, of GTRI’s Electro-Optical Systems Laboratory (EOSL), said his first reaction to the award was shaped by the very security awareness culture he supports at work.

“We are in training season for phishing emails at GTRI,” he said with a laugh. “So, my first reaction was almost disbelief. I thought, ‘There has to be something going on here.’ I went and confirmed it before I let myself believe it was real.”

Once he verified the message was legitimate, the significance of the honor began to sink in.

“Beyond the recognition itself, what really mattered to me was the reflection of impact,” Greene said. “IEEE is really my home away from home. A lot of my time outside of GTRI is dedicated to IEEE and its programming, so to see that work recognized in this way was incredibly meaningful.”

The McClure Citation of Honor is focused on professional activities. For Greene, that focus aligns directly with how he has chosen to invest his time in IEEE and in IEEE-Eta Kappa Nu (IEEE-HKN), the organization’s honor society for electrical and computer engineers.

Greene’s involvement with IEEE-HKN began as an undergraduate at Boston University, and continued through graduate school and into his professional career. Over time, he moved from chapter-level activities into roles that support the wider society, particularly in areas such as data management, AI-enabled tools, and mentoring programs that connect students with alumni and professionals.

He describes IEEE and IEEE-HKN as a kind of infrastructure for the profession, giving students and early-career engineers a place to test their leadership skills, build networks, and learn how to work across disciplines. In the interview, Greene emphasized how much of his volunteer work focuses on creating systems that make those experiences easier to access and more sustainable.

Rather than focusing only on one-time events, he has helped build programs that can be replicated and scaled, from virtual mentoring and career panels to tools that help chapters track engagement and connect with each other. Those efforts support the kind of professional development that the McClure Citation seeks to highlight, including career readiness, leadership, and the ability to engage with broader policy and societal issues that affect engineers.

Greene said that one of the most rewarding aspects of his IEEE-HKN work is seeing students and young professionals realize how much they have to offer, even early in their careers. Through mentoring and leadership opportunities, he has watched them gain confidence, find their communities, and begin to shape the profession they are entering.

That same systems-focused mindset carries over to Greene’s research at GTRI, where he works at the intersection of optics, algorithms, and emerging sensing technologies.

“It is basically optical design meets deep learning to push what is possible with physical systems,” he said, describing his work in computational imaging. “I find myself interfacing across a wide range of projects where I either inspire next-generation algorithms or next-generation optical design to meet key needs in our primarily Department of Defense portfolio.”

In that role, Greene often thinks about how to integrate new concepts into real-world systems in a way that advances capability without introducing unacceptable levels of risk.

“The major drive I have at the Institute is to balance risk with innovation,” he said. “We want designs that are truly new and push forward what our sponsors can do, but we cannot demand an incredible amount of risk that would prohibit us from achieving those successes.”

A significant portion of his recent work focuses on neuromorphic imaging, or event-based vision, a sensing approach that operates differently from traditional cameras.

“The goal of these cameras is to redo the paradigm in which we interrogate the world,” Greene explained. “You are more interested in motion and change than in static walls around you. Event-based cameras respond to action. They suppress a lot of static information and can pull out minute changes in the world around you, even with very faint contrast.”

Because these devices are relatively new and not yet standardized, Greene said there is still foundational work to do.

“These are new and largely unstandardized devices,” he said. “If we take one off the shelf and try to relate it back to theory, there are gaps. We want to calibrate and characterize practical devices so we can provide real guarantees to our sponsors about how they will perform in the real world.”

At the same time, he is helping explore mission-focused applications where the technology’s strengths, such as high dynamic range and performance in ultra–low light, can make a meaningful difference.

“There are very particular use cases where this technology can have a big impact,” Greene said. “It has already generated excitement in areas like autonomous vehicles because of its performance across a wide range of lighting conditions, including ultra–low light.”

Whether he is helping a student chapter modernize its data systems, advising early-career engineers through IEEE-HKN programs, or designing a new imaging approach for a sponsor, Greene sees a common thread running through his volunteer service and his work at GTRI.

Both, he said, are about building structures that help people see more clearly, make better decisions, and respond more effectively to complex problems. The McClure Citation of Honor recognizes that broad kind of impact, one that spans technical leadership, professional development, and community building across the engineering profession.

Joseph Greene is an exemplar of GTRI’s mission to “serve national security” and “educate future technology leaders” as one of “the foremost innovators creating a secure nation, a prosperous Georgia, and a sustainable world.”

Writer: Christopher Weems

Photos: Christopher J. Moore
GTRI Communications
Georgia Tech Research Institute
Atlanta, Georgia

About the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI)
The Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) is the nonprofit, applied research division of the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech). Founded in 1934 as the Engineering Experiment Station, GTRI has grown to more than 3,000 employees, supporting eight laboratories in over 20 locations around the country and performing more than $919 million of problem-solving research annually for government and industry. GTRI's renowned researchers combine science, engineering, economics, policy, and technical expertise to solve complex problems for the U.S. federal government, state, and industry.

To achieve better training outcomes with faster deployment results, Fukang Liu and Feiyang Wu, graduate students under Professor Ye Zhao from the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and faculty member of the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines, have published a duo of papers in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters. This is a collaborative work with three other IRIM affiliated faculties, Profs. Danfei Xu, Yue Chen, and Sehoon Ha, as well as Prof. Anqi Wu from School of Computational Science and Engineering.

To develop more reliable motion learning for humanoid robots and enable humanoid robots to perform complex whole-body movements in the real world, Fukang led a team and developed Opt2Skill, a hybrid robot learning framework that combines model-based trajectory optimization with reinforcement learning.  Their framework integrates dynamics and contacts into the trajectory planning process and generates high-quality, dynamically feasible datasets, which result in more reliable motion learning for humanoid robots and improved position tracking and task success rates. This approach shows a promising way to augment the performance and generalization of humanoid RL policies using dynamically feasible motion datasets. Incorporating torque data also improved motion stability and force tracking in contact-rich scenarios, demonstrating that torque information plays a key role in learning physically consistent and contact-rich humanoid behaviors.

While other datasets, such as inverse kinematics or human demonstrations, are valuable, they don’t always capture the dynamics needed for reliable whole-body humanoid control.” said by Fukang Liu. “With our Opt2Skill framework, we combine trajectory optimization with reinforcement learning to generate and leverage high-quality, dynamically feasible motion data. This integrated approach gives robots a richer and more physically grounded training process, enabling them to learn these complex tasks more reliably and safely for real-world deployment. - Fukang Liu

In another line of humanoid research, Feiyang established a one-stage training framework that allows humanoid robots to learn locomotion more efficiently and with greater environmental adaptability. Their framework, Learn-to-Teach (L2T), unlike traditional two-stage “teacher-student” approaches, which first train an expert in simulation and then retrain a limited-perception student, teaches both simultaneously, sharing knowledge and experiences in real time. The result of this two-way training is a 50% reduction in training data and time, while maintaining or surpassing state-of-the-art performance in humanoid locomotion. The lightweight policy learned through this process enables the lab’s humanoid robot to traverse more than a dozen real-world terrains—grass, gravel, sand, stairs, and slopes—without retraining or depth sensors.

By training an expert and a deployable controller together, we can turn rich simulation feedback into a lightweight policy that runs on real hardware, letting our humanoid adapt to uneven, unstructured terrain with far less data and hand-tuning than traditional methods. - Feiyang Wu

By the application of these training processes, the team hopes to speed the development of deployable humanoid robots for home use, manufacturing, defense, and search and rescue assistance in dangerous environments. These methods also support advances in embodied intelligence, enabling robots to learn richer, more context-aware behaviors.Additionally, the training data process can be applied to research to improve the functionality and adaptability of human assistive devices for medical and therapeutic uses.

As humanoid robots move from controlled labs into messy, unpredictable real-world environments, the key is developing embodied intelligence—the ability for robots to sense, adapt, and act through their physical bodies,” said Professor Ye Zhao. “The innovations from our students push us closer to robots that can learn robust skills, navigate diverse terrains, and ultimately operate safely and reliably alongside people. - Prof. Ye Zhao

Author - Christa M. Ernst

Citations

Liu F, Gu Z, Cai Y, Zhou Z, Jung H, Jang J, Zhao S, Ha S, Chen Y, Xu D, Zhao Y. Opt2skill: Imitating dynamically-feasible whole-body trajectories for versatile humanoid loco-manipulation. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters. 2025 Oct 13.

Wu F, Nal X, Jang J, Zhu W, Gu Z, Wu A, Zhao Y. Learn to teach: Sample-efficient privileged learning for humanoid locomotion over real-world uneven terrain. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters. 2025 Jul 23.
 

The interactive dashboard compiles and visualizes data gathered by Matisoff, along with Program and Operations Manager Michael Morley, offering a comprehensive view of SAF production, feedstock availability, and policy trends.

EPIcenter Research Associate Yang You has designed the dashboard to translate complex datasets into policy-relevant insights for decision-makers. By organizing key metrics into interactive visuals, the dashboard helps stakeholders assess market readiness and identify regulatory actions that could accelerate SAF adoption.

Emphasizing the importance of data-driven insights, Matisoff said, “The Department of Energy has a Grand Challenge to produce 3 billion gallons a year of Sustainable Aviation Fuel by 2030, and 35 billion gallons a year by 2050. By compiling and visualizing SAF data, we can help policymakers and researchers understand progress towards these goals, where the key opportunities and bottlenecks are – and how to move forward effectively”. 

Why SAF Matters
While aviation only accounts for about 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions, it is a rapidly growing share, and decarbonizing this sector is considered one of the most challenging aspects of the energy transition. Produced from renewable feedstocks, sustainable aviation fuel offers a pathway to reduce lifecycle emissions from air travel without requiring major changes to aircraft or infrastructure. However, SAF production and deployment face hurdles related to cost, supply chain development, and policy support.

EPIcenter’s Director Laura Taylor highlighted the dashboard’s role in addressing these challenges:
“Sustainable aviation fuel is a cornerstone of decarbonizing air travel, but the market is complex and rapidly evolving. The dashboard provides clarity by organizing the relevant data in a way that’s accessible and actionable for decision-makers.”

“This tool is meant to bridge analysis and action,” said You. “By visualizing SAF production, capacity, and offtake dynamics, the dashboard allows policymakers and stakeholders to see where the market is moving, where gaps remain, and how targeted infrastructure investments or supportive policies could unlock scale.”

The EPIcenter SAF Dashboard is intended as a resource for industry leaders, policymakers, and researchers working to accelerate SAF adoption. By providing transparent, data-driven insights, Georgia Tech aims to support informed decisions that advance innovation and sustainability in aviation.

To explore the dashboard and learn more about Georgia Tech’s work on sustainable aviation fuel, visit EPIcenter’s SAF page. 

The College of Computing named Professor Rich Vuduc as director of the Center for Scientific Software Engineering (CSSE). The Georgia Tech hub is dedicated to building reliable, high-performance software for scientists.  

Under Vuduc’s leadership, CSSE strives to accelerate the pace and increase the quality of scientific discovery by developing custom software tools and best practices tailored to researchers’ needs.

“There is a reproducibility and reliability problem right now with scientific software,” Vuduc said. “The promise of CSSE is to leverage capabilities shared between Georgia Tech, Schmidt Sciences, and industry experts to address this problem.” 

Issues arise because scientists often need to develop their own software for experiments or data analysis. However, troubleshooting coding issues and other bugs can slow down research.

To assist these scientists, CSSE receives their input to create custom software tools and best practices. The center employs professional software engineers who build and deliver products tailor-made to the needs of researchers at Georgia Tech and broader scientific communities.

Beyond its research focus, CSSE helps Georgia Tech fulfill its educational mission. The center provides students with direct access and exposure to real-world software engineering.

As the center enters its third year, Vuduc wants to better prepare students for employment by enhancing their hands-on experience while learning from CSSE engineers.

To achieve this goal, Vuduc is working to establish a Ph.D. fellowship program in which CSSE engineers mentor students. This program would connect academic inquiry with industry expertise, creating the next generation of dynamic leaders in computational science.  

Vuduc also envisions pairing CSSE with Georgia Tech’s Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) program. This approach would allow undergraduate students to earn class credit while working with CSSE engineers on large software engineering projects spanning multiple semesters.

“The center gives our students access to something that is very unique to find in a university environment,” Vuduc said. 

“The software engineers in CSSE mostly come from industry. They have over 65 years of combined experience doing real-world software engineering that students can learn from.”

Vuduc is a 2010 recipient of the Gordon Bell Prize and a leading expert in high-performance computing (HPC). He was a finalist for the award in 2020 and 2022.

The Gordon Bell Prize, often referred to as the Nobel Prize in supercomputing due to the scope and magnitude of research it recognizes, celebrates achievement in HPC research and application. 

Vuduc joined Georgia Tech in 2007 as one of the first faculty hired for the new Division of Computational Science and Engineering (CSE). Not a stranger of leading new units, he saw CSE begin offering M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in 2008 and attain school status in 2010.  

Since 2021, Vuduc has served as co-director of the Center for Research into Novel Computing Hierarchies (CRNCH). 

CRNCH is an interdisciplinary research center at Georgia Tech that explores technologies and approaches that will usher the next generation of computing. Areas CRNCH studies include quantum computing, brain-inspired computing, and approximate computing. 

Vuduc will step down as CRNCH co-director to fulfill his role as CSSE director. The College of Computing will lead a search for CRNCH’s next co-director.

“In a sense, the CRNCH to CSSE transition was partly a natural one because one thing that contributes to software challenges is that hardware platforms are also changing and evolving very rapidly,” said Vuduc. 

“People are exploring radically new hardware systems and we will have to write software configured for those too. Centers, like CRNCH and CSSE, strongly position Georgia Tech to lead these endeavors.” 

Alessandro (Alex) Orso, the previous CSSE director, departed Georgia Tech earlier this year to become dean of the University of Georgia’s College of Engineering. Orso and Distinguished Professor Irfan Essa wrote the proposal to bring CSSE to Georgia Tech.

Georgia Tech formed CSSE in 2022 after securing an $11 million grant from Schmidt Sciences. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and his spouse, Wendy Schmidt, founded the philanthropic venture that funds science and technology research and talent networking programs. 

Georgia Tech’s CSSE is part of Schmidt Sciences’ Virtual Institute for Scientific Software (VISS) program. This network helps scientists obtain more robust, flexible, scalable open-source software. 

Schmidt Sciences is investing $40 million in VISS over five years at four universities: Georgia Tech, University of Washington, Johns Hopkins University, and University of Cambridge.

CSSE uses the funding to employ a software engineering lead, three senior and two junior software engineers. The Schmidt Sciences grant equips these engineers with computing resources to build scientific software. Along with the director, an advisory board guides the group’s work to meet the point of need for scientists in the field. 

“I am grateful to Schmidt Sciences for their support of CSSE. It aligns with our college’s strategic goals and expertise in scientific software, and I am delighted that Rich has agreed to take on this important role,” said Vivek Sarkar, Dean and John P. Imlay Jr. Chair of Computing.

“I know that Rich is committed to growing CSSE's internal and external visibility and long-term sustainability. I am confident that he will also help further socialize CSSE among internal stakeholders across Georgia Tech.”

Despite their importance, most of what scientists know about proteins only comes from a small sample size. This stands in the way of fully understanding how most proteins work and unlocking their full potential.

Georgia Tech’s Yunan Luo believes artificial intelligence (AI) could fill this knowledge gap. The National Science Foundation agrees. Luo is the recipient of an NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award. 

“So much of biology depends on knowing what proteins do, but decades of research have concentrated on a relatively small set of well-studied proteins. This imbalance in scientific attention leads to a distorted view of the biological landscape that quietly shapes our data and our algorithms,” Luo said.

“My group’s goal is to build machine learning (ML) models that actively close this gap by generating trustworthy function predictions for the many proteins that remain understudied.”

[Related: Yunan Luo to use AI for Protein Design and Discovery with Support of $1.8 Million NIH Grant]

In his proposal to NSF, Luo coined this rich-get-richer effect “annotation inequality.” 

One problem of annotation inequality is that it slows progress in disease prognosis, drug discovery, and other critical biomedical areas. It is challenging to innovate the few proteins that scientists already know so much about. 

A cascading effect of annotation inequality is that it diminishes the effectiveness of studying proteins with AI.  

AI methods learn from existing experimental data. Datasets skewed toward well-known proteins propagate and become entrenched in models. Over time, this makes it harder for computers to research understudied proteins. 

“Protein annotation inequality creates an effect analogous to a vast library where 95% of patrons only read the top 5% popular books, leaving the rest of the collection to gather dust,” Luo said.

“This has resulted in knowledge disparities across proteins in current literature and databases, biasing our understanding of protein functions.”

The NSF CAREER award will fund Luo with over $770,000 for the next five years to tackle head-on the problem of protein annotation inequality.

Luo will use the grant to build an accurate, unbiased protein function prediction framework at scale. His project aims to:

• Reveal how annotation inequality affects protein function prediction systems
• Create ML techniques suited for biological data, which is often noisy, incomplete, and imbalanced  
• Integrate data and ML models into a scalable framework to accelerate discoveries involving understudied proteins

More enduring than the ML framework, Luo will leverage the NSF award to support educational and outreach programs. His goal is to groom the next generation of researchers to study other challenges in computational biology, not just the annotation inequality problem.

Luo teaches graduate and undergraduate courses focused on computational biology and ML. Problems and methods developed through the CAREER project can be used as course material in his classes.

Luo also championed collaboration with Georgia Tech’s Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing (CEISMC) in his proposal. 

Through this partnership, local high school teachers and students would gain access to his data and models. This promotes deeper learning of biology and data science through hands-on experience with real-world tools.  

Luo sees reaching students and the community as a way of paying forward the support he received from Georgia Tech colleagues. 

“I am incredibly grateful for this recognition from the NSF,” said Luo, an assistant professor in the School of Computational Science and Engineering (CSE). 

“This would not have been possible without my students and collaborators, whose hard work laid the groundwork for this proposal.”

Luo praised CSE faculty members B. Aditya Prakash, Xiuwei Zhang, and Chao Zhang for their guidance. All three study machine learning and computational bioscience, two of CSE’s five core research areas. 

Luo also thanked Haesun Park for her support and recommendation for the CAREER award. Park is a Regents’ Professor and the chair of the School of CSE.

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University research drives U.S. innovation, and Georgia Institute of Technology is leading the way.  

Their project, “Designing Futures: Afrofuturist Co-Creation with AI for Community-Led Facade Design” will be realized during a 16-week design studio (ARCH 4016) class that will take place during fall 2026 and serve senior undergraduate architecture students. Participants from diverse majors will join through the Building for Equity and Sustainability Vertically Integrated Project (VIP) team, in partnership with the Center for Sustainable Communities Research and Education (SCoRE). Pre-planning tasks will occur spring semester in preparation for the fall studio class.

The studio class will collaborate with Moinak Choudhury and students in LMC 3403, who bring expertise in technical communication, responsible AI use, and community-based learning to co-create engagement materials and public-facing documentation that strengthen the project’s interdisciplinary links between design, sustainability, and communication. 

The final result of the project encompasses students who will design and install a modular, solar-powered façade panel system for the outdoor classroom on WAWA’s campus. This project extends work done by a previous Georgia Tech VIP team.

The panels will serve multiple functions: participatory community engagement, artistic expression, and climate regulation. This project will advance the classroom toward its intended vision as an Afrofuturist learning space with technological nods to the Keneda Building on Georgia Tech’s campus. With the help of this seed grant, interdisciplinary team members will delve into design, engineering, computing, communication, and community partnership.

“While we often talk about food and housing insecurity, fewer people recognize energy as a basic necessity that shapes not only comfort, but also safety and stress,” said Assistant Professor Michelle Graff, who co-authored the paper published in JAMA Network Open.

Analyzing data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey, the researchers found that 43% of households experienced energy insecurity in the past year. Among respondents who reduced spending on necessities to cover energy bills, nearly 39% reported symptoms of anxiety and 32% reported symptoms of depression — more than twice the incidence among respondents who didn’t need to make that tradeoff.

“Being able to afford your home does not guarantee you can afford to safely heat, cool, or power it,” Graff said.

Such instability disproportionately affects Black and Hispanic households, renters, and families dependent on electronic medical devices, Graff said.

And while the study was not designed to explain whether energy insecurity causes mental health issues or some other dynamic is at work, Graff said it’s incontrovertible that these groups face compounding stressors. Living in inefficient housing can lead to higher bills and unsafe temperatures, disrupting sleep and health. When combined with the financial anxiety of potential utility shutoffs and the need to sacrifice food or medicine to pay bills, these trade-offs create a cycle of chronic stress, she said.

Among other recommendations, Graff said healthcare providers should start screening for energy insecurity just as they do for food insecurity.

“We view this primarily as a data-collection initiative designed to generate the evidence needed to inform future policy recommendations and program improvements,” Graff said.

Graff is continuing to explore these issues with Carter School graduate students, including recent work on state-level aid implementation with Ph.D. student Ryan Anthony and upcoming research with other students on how energy insecurity impacts eviction rates.

The article, “Energy Insecurity and Mental Health Symptoms in US Adults,” was published Oct. 27, 2025, in JAMA Network Open. It is available at https://doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.39479.

Georgia Tech’s Executive Vice President for Research search committee has selected three finalists. Each candidate will visit campus and present a seminar sharing their broad vision for the Institute's research enterprise. The seminars are open to all faculty, students, and staff across the campus community. Interested individuals can attend in person or register to participate via Zoom (pre-registration is required).    

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The oceans are heating up as the planet warms.

This past year, 2024, was the warmest ever measured for the global ocean, following a record-breaking 2023. In fact, every decade since 1984, when satellite recordkeeping of ocean temperatures started, has been warmer than the previous one.

A warmer ocean means increased evaporation, which in turn results in heavier rains in some areas and droughts in others. It can power hurricanes and downpours. It can also harm the health of coastal marine areas and sea life – coral reefs suffered their most extensive bleaching event on record in 2024, with damage in many parts of the world.

Warming ocean water also affects temperatures on land by changing weather patterns. The EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service announced on Jan. 10 that data showed 2024 had also broken the record for the warmest year globally, with global temperatures about 2.9 degrees Fahrenheit (1.6 Celsius) above pre-industrial times. That would mark the first full calendar year with average warming above 1.5 C, a level countries had agreed to try to avoid passing long-term.

Climate change, by and large, takes the blame. Greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere trap heat, and about 90% of the excess heat caused by emissions from burning fossil fuels and other human activities is absorbed by the ocean.

But while it’s clear that the ocean has been warming for quite some time, its temperatures over the past two years have been far above the previous decades. That leaves two mysteries for scientists.

It’s Not Just El Niño

The cyclic climate pattern of the El Niño Southern Oscillation can explain part of the warmth over the past two years.

During El Niño periods, warm waters that usually accumulate in the western equatorial Pacific Ocean move eastward toward the coastlines of Peru and Chile, leaving the Earth slightly warmer overall. The latest El Niño began in 2023 and caused global average temperatures to rise well into early 2024.

But the oceans have been even warmer than scientists expected. For example, global temperatures in 2023-2024 followed a similar growth and decline pattern across the seasons as the previous El Niño event, in 2015-2016, but they were about 0.36 degrees Fahrenheit (0.2 Celsius) higher at all times in 2023-2024.

Scientists are puzzled and left with two problems to solve. They must figure out whether something else contributed to the unexpected warming and whether the past two years have been a sign of a sudden acceleration in global warming.

The Role of Aerosols

An intriguing idea, tested using climate models, is that a swift reduction in aerosols over the past decade may be one of the culprits.

Aerosols are solid and liquid particles emitted by human and natural sources into the atmosphere. Some of them have been shown to partially counteract the impact of greenhouse gases by reflecting solar radiation back into space. However, they also are responsible for poor air quality and air pollution.

Many of these particles with cooling properties are generated in the process of burning fossil fuels. For example, sulfur aerosols are emitted by ship engines and power plants. In 2020, the shipping industry implemented a nearly 80% cut in sulfur emissions, and many companies shifted to low-sulfur fuels. But the larger impact has come from power plants reducing their emissions, including a big shift in this direction in China. So, while technologies have cut these harmful emissions, that means a brake slowing the pace of warming is weakened.

Is This a Warming Surge?

The second puzzle is whether the planet is seeing a warming surge or not.

Temperatures are clearly rising, but the past two years have not been warm enough to support the notion that we may be seeing an acceleration in the rate of global warming.

Analysis of four temperature datasets covering the 1850-2023 period has shown that the rate of warming has not shown a significant change since around the 1970s. The same authors, however, noted that only a rate increase of at least 55% – about half a degree Celsius and nearly a full degree Fahrenheit over one year – would make the warming acceleration detectable in a statistical sense.

From a statistical standpoint, then, scientists cannot exclude the possibility that the 2023-2024 record ocean warming resulted simply from the “usual” warming trend that humans have set the planet on for the past 50 years. A very strong El Niño contributed some natural variability.

From a practical standpoint, however, the extraordinary impacts the planet has witnessed – including extreme weather, heat waves, wildfires, coral bleaching and ecosystem destruction – point to a need to swiftly reduce carbon dioxide emissions to limit ocean warming, regardless of whether this is a continuation of an ongoing trend or an acceleration.

This article has been updated with Copernicus Climate Change Service’s global 2024 temperature data.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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 “What is happening within the field is revolutionary,” says School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Associate Chair and Professor Annalisa Bracco, adding that because many climate-related processes — from ocean currents to melting glaciers and weather patterns — can be described with physical equations, these advancements have the potential to help us understand and predict climate in critically important ways. 

Bracco is the lead author of a new review paper providing a comprehensive look at the intersection of AI and climate physics.

The result of an international collaboration between Georgia Tech’s Bracco, Julien Brajard (Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center), Henk A. Dijkstra (Utrecht University), Pedram Hassanzadeh (University of Chicago), Christian Lessig (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts), and Claire Monteleoni (University of Colorado Boulder), the paper, ‘Machine learning for the physics of climate,’ was recently published in Nature Reviews Physics. 

“One of our team’s goals was to help people think deeply on how climate science and AI intersect,” Bracco shares. “Machine learning is allowing us to study the physics of climate in a way that was previously impossible. Coupled with increasing amounts of data and observations, we can now investigate climate at scales and resolutions we’ve never been able to before.”

Connecting hidden dots

The team showed that ML is driving change in three key areas: accounting for missing observational data, creating more robust climate models, and enhancing predictions, especially in weather forecasting. However, the research also underscores the limits of AI — and how researchers can work to fill those gaps.

“Machine learning has been fantastic in allowing us to expand the time and the spatial scales for which we have measurements,” says Bracco, explaining that ML could help fill in missing data points — creating a more robust record for researchers to reference. However, like patching a hole in a shirt, this works best when the rest of the material is intact.

“Machine learning can extrapolate from past conditions when observations are abundant, but it can’t yet predict future trends or collect the data we need,” Bracco adds. “To keep advancing, we need scientists who can determine what data we need, collect that data, and solve problems.”

Modeling climate, predicting weather

Machine learning is often used when improving climate models that can simulate changing systems like our atmosphere, oceans, land, biochemistry, and ice. “These models are limited because of our computing power, and are run on a three-dimensional grid,” Bracco explains: below the grid resolution, researchers need to approximate complex physics with simpler equations that computers can solve quickly, a process called ‘parameterization’.

Machine learning is changing that, offering new ways to improve parameterizations, she says. “We can run a model at extremely high resolutions for a short time, so that we don’t need to parameterize as many physical processes — using machine learning to derive the equations that best approximate what is happening at small scales,” she explains. “Then we can use those equations in a coarser model that we can run for hundreds of years.”

While a full climate model based solely on machine learning may remain out of reach, the team found that ML is advancing our ability to accurately predict weather systems and some climate phenomena like El Niño. 

Previously, weather prediction was based on knowing the starting conditions — like temperature, humidity, and barometric pressure — and running a model based on physics equations to predict what might happen next. Now, machine learning is giving researchers the opportunity to learn from the past. “We can use information on what has happened when there were similar starting conditions in previous situations to predict the future without solving the underlying governing equations,” Bracco says. “And all while using orders-of-magnitude less computing resources.”

The human connection

Bracco emphasizes that while AI and ML play a critical role in accelerating research, humans are at the core of progress. “I think the in-person collaboration that led to this paper is, in itself, a testament to the importance of human interaction,” she says, recalling that the research was the result of a workshop organized at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics — one of the team’s first in-person discussions after the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Machine learning is a fantastic tool — but it's not the solution to everything,” she adds. “There is also a real need for human researchers collecting high-quality data, and for interdisciplinary collaboration across fields. I see this as a big challenge, but a great opportunity for computer scientists and physicists, mathematicians, biologists, and chemists to work together.”

Funding: National Science Foundation, European Research Council, Office of Naval Research, US Department of Energy, European Space Agency, Choose France Chair in AI.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s42254-024-00776-3

The award will support a broad spectrum of multidisciplinary research activities by the multinational teams and intermediate to long-term (three months to one year) collaborative visits to global research sites in Japan, Europe, and the U.S. A total of 46 proposals were submitted to ASPIRE for Top Scientists, out of which 14 were selected by expert evaluation. Each project is an international collaboration and the initiative's key focus is advancing science and technology on an international level.

Fedorov will lead a project titled "Construction of International Data and Analysis Platform for Inorganic Power-storage Materials Informatics with Nano/Micro-Structure" that will explore the intersection of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Informatics, and Energy. He will represent Georgia Tech as a principal investigator. The planned research will also involve faculty members and graduate students from College of Engineering schools involved in the Strategic Energy Institute.

Read the full story on the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering website.

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It is with immense gratitude and admiration that we announce the retirement of Robert Butera, who has served Georgia Tech with the highest dedication and excellence. As the chief research operations officer (CROO), Butera has facilitated the Institute’s research activities, overseeing research integrity assurance, research administration, research operations/infrastructure, and research development. His leadership and vision have left an indelible mark on Georgia Tech's research enterprise.

Butera’s journey at Georgia Tech began long before his role as CROO. He received his undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from Georgia Tech in 1991. He joined the Institute’s faculty in 1999, after earning his Ph.D. from Rice University and spending several years as a postdoctoral researcher at the National Institutes of Health. Over the years, Butera has held numerous pivotal roles, including vice president for research development and operations, associate dean for research in the College of Engineering, and director of the Neural Engineering Center. Prior to joining Georgia Tech’s research leadership, Butera directed the interdisciplinary bioengineering graduate program, then co-founded the Grand Challenges Living Learning Community.

As a professor, Butera graduated 15 Ph.D. students and mentored over 100 undergraduates, for which he received Georgia Tech’s Senior Faculty Outstanding Undergraduate Research Mentor Award in 2016. He also mentored several postdocs and master’s students.

Butera’s accolades are numerous, including the prestigious Georgia Tech ANAK award and election as a Fellow to both the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering. He held significant leadership roles within the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society. These honors reflect his impact on the field of biomedical engineering and his dedication to advancing scientific knowledge.

Beyond his professional achievements, Butera’s personal passions have also enriched the larger Georgia Tech community. His love for whitewater kayaking, which he discovered through Outdoor Recreation Georgia Tech (ORGT), led to a decade of volunteering as an instructor and trip leader. This commitment to adventure and leadership development has inspired many students and colleagues alike.

"Rob's unwavering commitment to excellence and his visionary leadership have been instrumental in advancing Georgia Tech's research mission. His contributions have not only elevated our institution but have also profoundly impacted the broader scientific community. We are deeply grateful for his service and wish him all the best in his well-deserved retirement,” said Tim Lieuwen, executive vice president for Research.

Andrés J. García, executive director of the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience, shared these heartfelt words: "Rob, the ultimate Yellow Jacket, has been a tireless champion to improve research, educational, and operational processes at Georgia Tech. He has had tremendous positive impact in Georgia Tech, the state, and the nation. We will miss his deep knowledge and expertise, exceptional problem solving, practical perspective, and genuine care for faculty, staff, and students, and we wish him continued success in his next chapter."

Lena Ting, McCamish Foundation Distinguished Chair in Biomedical Engineering in the Walter H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, said, “Rob’s heart has a huge ‘GT’ stamped on it: He has always been engaged in all aspects of Georgia Tech life. I’m always amazed to hear about his undergrad teaching and mentoring, kayaking with ORGT, and advising his fraternity. At the same time, he worked tirelessly to enhance interdisciplinary research and solve challenges affecting faculty research, all while conducting his own innovative research. Rob is a GT nexus, always in the know about what is going on around campus and – more importantly – how and why it got to be that way. He is a great friend and colleague who is always available for a beer, and I’ll miss him dearly.”

As we bid farewell to Rob, we also extend a warm welcome to Bill Dracos, who will serve as the interim chief research operations officer, effective immediately. Bill brings a wealth of experience from his role as Deputy Chief Operating Officer at the Georgia Tech Research Institute and his previous leadership positions at George Mason University, Emory University, and PricewaterhouseCoopers. We are confident Bill will continue to build on Rob's legacy of excellence and innovation.

Thank you, Rob, for your years of service, your unwavering commitment to Georgia Tech, and your inspiring leadership. We wish you all the best in your retirement and look forward to seeing the new adventures you will undoubtedly embark upon.

Georgia Tech is conducting a national search for the next Chief Research Operations Officer. Learn more about the open position. 

Students and faculty from the School of Computational Science and Engineering (CSE) are leading the Georgia Tech contingent at the SIAM Conference on Computational Science and Engineering (CSE25). The Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) organizes CSE25, occurring March 3-7 in Fort Worth, Texas.

At CSE25, the School of CSE researchers are presenting papers that apply computing approaches to varying fields, including:                   

• Experiment designs to accelerate the discovery of material properties
• Machine learning approaches to model and predict weather forecasting and coastal flooding
• Virtual models that replicate subsurface geological formations used to store captured carbon dioxide
• Optimizing systems for imaging and optical chemistry
• Plasma physics during nuclear fusion reactions

[Related: GT CSE at SIAM CSE25 Interactive Graphic] 

“In CSE, researchers from different disciplines work together to develop new computational methods that we could not have developed alone,” said School of CSE Professor Edmond Chow. 

“These methods enable new science and engineering to be performed using computation.” 

CSE is a discipline dedicated to advancing computational techniques to study and analyze scientific and engineering systems. CSE complements theory and experimentation as modes of scientific discovery. 

Held every other year, CSE25 is the primary conference for the SIAM Activity Group on Computational Science and Engineering (SIAG CSE). School of CSE faculty serve in key roles in leading the group and preparing for the conference.

In December, SIAG CSE members elected Chow to a two-year term as the group’s vice chair. This election comes after Chow completed a term as the SIAG CSE program director. 

School of CSE Associate Professor Elizabeth Cherry has co-chaired the CSE25 organizing committee since the last conference in 2023. Later that year, SIAM members reelected Cherry to a second, three-year term as a council member at large. 

At Georgia Tech, Chow serves as the associate chair of the School of CSE. Cherry, who recently became the associate dean for graduate education of the College of Computing, continues as the director of CSE programs. 

“With our strong emphasis on developing and applying computational tools and techniques to solve real-world problems, researchers in the School of CSE are well positioned to serve as leaders in computational science and engineering both within Georgia Tech and in the broader professional community,” Cherry said. 

Georgia Tech’s School of CSE was first organized as a division in 2005, becoming one of the world’s first academic departments devoted to the discipline. The division reorganized as a school in 2010 after establishing the flagship CSE Ph.D. and M.S. programs, hiring nine faculty members, and attaining substantial research funding.

Ten School of CSE faculty members are presenting research at CSE25, representing one-third of the School’s faculty body. Of the 23 accepted papers written by Georgia Tech researchers, 15 originate from School of CSE authors.

The list of School of CSE researchers, paper titles, and abstracts includes:
Bayesian Optimal Design Accelerates Discovery of Material Properties from Bubble Dynamics
Postdoctoral Fellow Tianyi Chu, Joseph Beckett, Bachir Abeid, and Jonathan Estrada (University of Michigan), Assistant Professor Spencer Bryngelson
[Abstract]

Latent-EnSF: A Latent Ensemble Score Filter for High-Dimensional Data Assimilation with Sparse Observation Data
Ph.D. student Phillip Si, Assistant Professor Peng Chen
[Abstract]

A Goal-Oriented Quadratic Latent Dynamic Network Surrogate Model for Parameterized Systems
Yuhang Li, Stefan Henneking, Omar Ghattas (University of Texas at Austin), Assistant Professor Peng Chen
[Abstract]

Posterior Covariance Structures in Gaussian Processes
Yuanzhe Xi (Emory University), Difeng Cai (Southern Methodist University), Professor Edmond Chow
[Abstract]

Robust Digital Twin for Geological Carbon Storage
Professor Felix Herrmann, Ph.D. student Abhinav Gahlot, alumnus Rafael Orozco (Ph.D. CSE-CSE 2024), alumnus Ziyi (Francis) Yin (Ph.D. CSE-CSE 2024), and Ph.D. candidate Grant Bruer
[Abstract]

Industry-Scale Uncertainty-Aware Full Waveform Inference with Generative Models
Rafael Orozco, Ph.D. student Tuna Erdinc, alumnus Mathias Louboutin (Ph.D. CS-CSE 2020), and Professor Felix Herrmann
[Abstract]

Optimizing Coupled Systems: Insights from Co-Design Imaging and Optical Chemistry
Assistant Professor Raphaël Pestourie, Wenchao Ma and Steven Johnson (MIT), Lu Lu (Yale University), Zin Lin (Virginia Tech)
[Abstract]

Multifidelity Linear Regression for Scientific Machine Learning from Scarce Data
Assistant Professor Elizabeth Qian, Ph.D. student Dayoung Kang, Vignesh Sella, Anirban Chaudhuri and Anirban Chaudhuri (University of Texas at Austin)
[Abstract]

LyapInf: Data-Driven Estimation of Stability Guarantees for Nonlinear Dynamical Systems
Ph.D. candidate Tomoki Koike and Assistant Professor Elizabeth Qian
[Abstract]

The Information Geometric Regularization of the Euler Equation
Alumnus Ruijia Cao (B.S. CS 2024), Assistant Professor Florian Schäfer
[Abstract]

Maximum Likelihood Discretization of the Transport Equation
Ph.D. student Brook Eyob, Assistant Professor Florian Schäfer
[Abstract]

Intelligent Attractors for Singularly Perturbed Dynamical Systems
Daniel A. Serino (Los Alamos National Laboratory), Allen Alvarez Loya (University of Colorado Boulder), Joshua W. Burby, Ioannis G. Kevrekidis (Johns Hopkins University), Assistant Professor Qi Tang (Session Co-Organizer)
[Abstract]

Accurate Discretizations and Efficient AMG Solvers for Extremely Anisotropic Diffusion Via Hyperbolic Operators
Golo Wimmer, Ben Southworth, Xianzhu Tang (LANL), Assistant Professor Qi Tang 
[Abstract]

Randomized Linear Algebra for Problems in Graph Analytics
Professor Rich Vuduc
[Abstract]

Improving Spgemm Performance Through Reordering and Cluster-Wise Computation
Assistant Professor Helen Xu
[Abstract]

Paradigm Shift in Construction

Now, researchers at Georgia Tech have developed a novel class of modular, reconfigurable, and sustainable building blocks — a new construction paradigm as well-suited for terrestrial homes as it is for extraterrestrial habitats. Their study, published in Matter, demonstrates that these innovative units, dubbed eco-voxels, can reduce carbon footprints by up to 40% compared to traditional construction materials. These units also maintain the structural performance needed for applications ranging from load-bearing walls to aircraft wings.

“We created sustainable structures using these eco-friendly building blocks, combining our knowledge of structural mechanics and mechanical design with industry-relevant manufacturing practices and environmental assessments,” said Christos Athanasiou, assistant professor at the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering.

Housing Affordability Solutions

Their work offers a potential solution to the growing housing affordability crisis. As climate-driven disasters such as hurricanes, wildfires, and floods increase, homes are damaged at higher rates, and insurance costs are skyrocketing. This crisis is fueled by rising land prices and restrictive development regulations. Meanwhile, the growing demand for housing places an increasing strain on global resources and the environment. The modularity and circularity of the developed approach can effectively address these issues. 

The New Building Blocks

Eco-voxels — short for eco-friendly voxels, the 3D equivalent of pixels — are made from polytrimethylene terephthalate (PTT). PTT is a partially bio-based polymer derived from corn sugar and reinforced with recycled carbon fibers from aerospace waste (scrap material lost during the manufacturing of aerospace components). Eco-voxels can be easily assembled into large, load-bearing structures and then disassembled and reconfigured, all without generating waste. Consequently, they offer a highly adaptable, sustainable approach to construction.

The team tested eco-voxels and found they can handle the pressure that buildings usually face. They also used computer simulations to show that changing the shape of eco-voxels makes them suitable for many different building needs.

The researchers compared the eco-voxel approach to other emerging construction methods like 3D-printed concrete and cross-laminated timber (CLT), finding that eco-voxels offer significant environmental advantages. While traditional and alternative materials are often heavy and carbon-intensive, the eco-voxel wall had the lowest carbon footprint: 30% lower than concrete and 20% lower than CLT.

These results highlight eco-voxels as a promising low-carbon, high-performance solution for sustainable and affordable construction, opening new possibilities for faster, more sustainable building solutions. In addition to residential uses, emergency shelters built with eco-voxels could be used for disaster-relief scenarios, where quick assembly, modularity, and minimal environmental impact are crucial.

The Army Research Office awarded Georgia Tech and its partners $20 million to develop scalable, efficient methods for transforming aluminum into hydrogen energy. The project could lead to a new, low-cost, clean, and efficient energy source powered by discarded materials. 

Aaron Stebner, professor and Eugene C. Gwaltney Jr. Chair in Manufacturing in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering, will oversee the multi-year effort at Georgia Tech together with Scott McWhorter, lead for Federal Initiatives at the Strategic Energy Institute.

In addition to several team members from Georgia Tech and the Georgia Tech Research Institute, the project includes researchers from Fort Valley State University, the 21st Century Partnership, MatSys, and Drexel University. 

“Aluminum already reacts with water — even wastewater and floodwater — to create hydrogen gas, power, and thermal energy,” McWhorter said. “If aluminum can be efficiently upcycled into stored energy, it could be a game-changer.” 

The team’s goal is to experiment with aluminum’s material properties so it can be inexpensively manufactured to create a highly effective reaction that produces low-cost, clean hydrogen.

“Having this ability would allow military bases to be less dependent on the use of a foreign country’s electrical grids,” said Stebner, who is also co-director of Georgia Artificial Intelligence in Manufacturing and faculty at the Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute. 

Manufacturing Aluminum

Several years ago, the Army Research Lab discovered and patented the basic technology for recycling aluminum to produce hydrogen gas. However, current manufacturing methods require too much energy for the amount of hydrogen energy produced.  

To make the technology viable and effective, Stebner and his colleagues will research alternate manufacturing processes and then develop automated methods for safely producing and storing stable aluminum. They also plan to optimize these processes using digital twin technologies.

Currently, manufacturers use large machines to grind up and tumble the aluminum in very controlled environments, because stray aluminum powder can be explosive. These methods are very costly. 

Stebner and the team are looking into small, modular technologies that could allow for convenient, onsite energy generation. According to Stebner, they are interested in determining how these smaller machines could be so efficient that they could be powered using solar panels. 

Stebner envisions that a field of solar panels could power the aluminum-processing modules — the aluminum recycling could be done while the sun shines and produce power 24/7. 

Sustainable Impact 

Once they have developed the manufacturing techniques and processes, the team plans to test their efficacy by generating power for rural Georgia communities. Success here would prove the technology could be viable for military deployments and other off-grid scenarios. 

“The Deep South — especially middle and southern Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana — often has enormous energy disruptions during hurricanes or power outages due to flooding and severe rains,” Stebner said. “Manufacturers can be hesitant to build big plants there, because the grids aren’t as stable. This same technology that the Army plans to use for remote military bases could be a game-changer in rural Georgia.”

If power is unexpectedly cut in those areas, floodwater could then be used to make hydrogen gas. While hydrogen has not yet had its day in the sun, it has great potential as an alternative to fossil fuels, Stebner says. 

“From a sustainability perspective, any time you can take something that’s already waste — like scrap aluminum and wastewater — and turn it into a high-value product that can be used to power communities, that is a huge win.” 

Funding: Army Research Office

PRIME-1, or Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment-1, is a combination tool of two instruments: TRIDENT and MSOLO. PRIME-1’s objective is to help scientists determine resources available on the moon, with the eventual goal of sending humans to live there. TRIDENT is a space-rated drill designed and built by Honeybee Robotics that can extract lunar soil up to 3 feet deep. MSOLO is a mass spectrometer that can analyze TRIDENT’s soil samples for water and other critical volatiles. Together, this data can show how viable living on and mining from the moon could be.

Two Georgia Tech alumna, Jackie Williams Quinn and Janine E.  Captain, led the PRIME-1 team for NASA. They had help with computer modeling of PRIME-1’s mass spectrometer data from Georgia Tech’s Regents’ Professor Thom Orlando and Senior Research Scientist Brant Jones in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry. 

Georgia Tech to the Moon

Georgia Tech’s expertise influenced all areas of developing PRIME-1, but perhaps their biggest contribution was the collaboration across disciplines. 

Quinn, a civil engineering graduate, wrote the initial proposal. She also managed TRIDENT’s development, through a contract with Honeybee Robotics, ensuring it was also built to operate in the harsh lunar environment (a process known as ruggedizing). The team worked with Honeybee’s Jameil Bailey, fellow Tech alumnus.

Captain, the MSOLO principal investigator and chemistry Ph.D. graduate, never planned to work at NASA. But her advisor, Orlando, got her interested. 

“What drew me to NASA’s In-Situ Resource Utilization team is that I could apply the instrumentation techniques that I learned in my Ph.D.  to measuring vital things like oxygen on the moon,” Captain said. 

Ruggedization Redux

When it was confirmed in 2008 the moon had water, NASA wondered if humans could one day live there. Having a functional mass spectrometer on the moon was paramount to determining where the water was and how much of it existed. Captain’s team modified a commercial mass spectrometer and tested it in a harsh environment comparable to the moon: Hawaii’s dormant shield volcano, Mauna Kea. Once they demonstrated the mission operation in this environment, they worked to ruggedize an existing one manufactured by instrumentation company INFICON. The team worked with INFICON and through lab tests, they showed that all components of the mass spectrometer functioned in a lunar vacuum environment.  

In Orlando’s lab, his team experimented with lunar material to determine how water interacts with lunar soil. From there, they created a theoretical model that simulated how much water they might find from what PRIME-1 sampled.  

“To create the model, we used the data of how water sticks to the lunar surface — from controlled experiments carried out in our ultra-high vacuum chambers at Georgia Tech,” Orlando said. “We approached the problem from a surface physics point of view in these lab experiments, but then in our model, we were able to connect to the actual mission activity.”

Once PRIME-1 hardware validation testing was finished, NASA was ready to launch.  That’s when things got hairy.

“We don't fully understand everything that happened during the landing, but the fact that PRIME-1 was fully functional is pretty amazing,” Captain said. “We got the data. It was so cool to know that all this work we did was worth it.” 

Moon Milestones

Although they didn’t get the chance to drill into the moon as planned, they can still analyze the data PRIME-1 pulled from the lunar atmosphere. This data includes how the spacecraft may have contaminated the local atmosphere.

“PRIME-1 was the only instrument that got to fully run and check out everything because when the lander fell over, the instrument was on top,” Quinn noted. “They were able to extend the drill all the way out a meter. It was drilling into empty space, but we were able to show that the drill got the signal from Earth, fully extended, and was able to auger and percuss. We were also able to fully operate MSOLO and gather data on gases coming off the lander in its final resting orientation.” 

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The SRI builds upon Georgia Tech’s long and distinguished history in space research and exploration. By uniting experts across disciplines — from aerospace engineering to planetary science, astrophysics, robotics, policy, the arts, and origin of life explorations — the SRI aims to create a resilient ecosystem for space research that can adapt and thrive, even in an era of fiscal uncertainty. It is composed of faculty, staff, and students whose collaborative research spans a broad spectrum of space-related topics, all deeply connected to advancing our understanding of space and its impact on the human experience.

“The launch of the SRI comes at a pivotal moment for the scientific community,” said Vice President of Interdisciplinary Research Julia Kubanek. “As the federal government proposes major cuts to funding agencies, our interdisciplinary research institutes are striving to support faculty and make them more competitive across disciplinary boundaries. This institute will publicly showcase impactful research led by Georgia Tech faculty, attract new collaborators, and pursue alternative funding strategies via philanthropic and industry partners.”

The Space Research Institute will consist of an interdisciplinary community of faculty across Georgia Tech’s schools, colleges, and the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI). 

“It is an honor to be appointed executive director of the Space Research Institute,” said Ready. “My plan is to provide internal and external space researchers with access to Georgia Tech’s world class facilities and turbocharge the space activities already underway. We’re committed to empowering our existing community while forging new partnerships that will expand our reach and impact across the global space ecosystem.”

Ready, a principal research engineer in GTRI’s Electro-Optical Systems Laboratory, is the first GTRI faculty member to serve in a long-term capacity as an IRI executive director. Prior to his appointment, he served as associate director of external engagement for the Georgia Tech Institute for Matter and Systems and director of the Georgia Tech Center for Space Technology and Research (CSTAR). He is also an adjunct professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at Georgia Tech.

Before joining the Georgia Tech faculty, Ready worked for General Dynamics and MicroCoating Technologies. Throughout his career, he has served as PI or co-PI for grants totaling more than $25M awarded by the Army, Navy, Air Force, DARPA, NASA, NSF, NIST, DOE, other federal sponsors, industry, charitable foundations, private citizens, and the States of Georgia and Florida. His current research focuses primarily on energy capture, storage, and delivery enabled by nanomaterial design. His research has been included on three missions to the International Space Station, two others to low earth orbit, and one perpetually in heliocentric orbit (Lunar Flashlight). His future space missions include MISSE-21 to the International Space Station and SSTEF-1 to the Lunar surface. A half dozen solar cells from his past missions to the International Space Station will be included in the permanent At Home in Space exhibit opening on the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's 50th Anniversary.

Ready has received numerous awards and honors for his work. His most recent awards include the Class of 1934 Outstanding Innovative Use of Education Technology award in 2025 and the Outstanding Achievement in Research Program Development award in 2023, both from Georgia Tech. He also received the One GTRI Collaboration Award in 2022, which he was awarded during GTRI’s annual Distinguished Performance Awards celebration.

Additional articles of interest:

10 Questions with Jud Ready
Space Station Testing Will Evaluate Photovoltaic Materials

The new institutes focus on expanding breakthroughs in neuroscience and space, two areas where research and federal funding are anticipated to remain strong. Both fields are poised to influence research in everything from healthcare and ethics to exploration and innovation. This expansion of Georgia Tech’s research enterprise represents the Institute’s commitment to research that will shape the future.

“At Georgia Tech, innovation flourishes where disciplines converge. With the launch of the Space Research Institute and the Institute for Neuroscience, Neurotechnology, and Society, we’re uniting experts across fields to take on some of humanity’s most profound questions. Even as we are tightening our belts in anticipation of potential federal R&D budget actions, we also are investing in areas where non-federal funding sources will grow and where big impacts are possible,” said Executive Vice President for Research Tim Lieuwen. "These institutes are about advancing knowledge — and using it to improve lives, inspire future generations, and help shape a better future for us all.”

Both INNS and SRI grew out of faculty-led initiatives shaped by a strategic planning process and campus-wide collaboration. Their evolution into formal institutes underscores the strength and momentum of Georgia Tech’s interdisciplinary research enterprise. 

Georgia Tech’s 11 IRIs support collaboration between researchers and students across the Institute’s seven colleges, the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), national laboratories, and corporate entities to tackle critical topics of strategic significance for the Institute as well as for local, state, national, and international communities.

"IRIs bring together Georgia Tech researchers making them more competitive and successful in solving research challenges, especially across disciplinary boundaries,” said Julia Kubanek, vice president of interdisciplinary research. “We're making these new investments in neuro- and space-related fields to publicly showcase impactful discoveries and developments led by Georgia Tech faculty, attract new partners and collaborators, and pursue alternative funding strategies at a time of federal funding uncertainty."

The Space Research Institute

The Space Research Institute will connect faculty, students, and staff who share a passion for space exploration and discovery. They will investigate a wide variety of space-related topics, exploring how space influences and intersects with the human experience. The SRI fosters a collaborative community including scientific, engineering, cultural, and commercial research that pursues broadly integrated, innovative projects.

SRI is the hub for all things space-related at Georgia Tech. It connects the Institute’s schools, colleges, research institutes, and labs to lead conversations about space in the state of Georgia and the world. Working in partnership with academics, business partners, philanthropists, students, and governments, Georgia Tech is committed to staying at the forefront of space-related innovation.   

The SRI will build upon the collaborative work of the Space Research Initiative, the first step in formalizing Georgia Tech’s broad interdisciplinary space research community. The Initiative brought together researchers from across campus and was guided by input from Georgia Tech stakeholders and external partners. It was led by an executive committee including Glenn Lightsey, John W. Young Chair Professor in the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering; Mariel Borowitz, associate professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs; and Jennifer Glass, associate professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. Beginning July 1, W. Jud Ready, a principal research engineer in GTRI’s Electro-Optical Systems Laboratory, will serve as the inaugural executive director of the Space Research Institute.

To receive the latest updates on space research and innovation at Georgia Tech, join the SRI mailing list. 

The Institute for Neuroscience, Neurotechnology, and Society

The Institute for Neuroscience, Neurotechnology, and Society (INNS) is dedicated to advancing neuroscience and neurotechnology to improve society through discovery, innovation, and engagement. INNS brings together researchers from neuroscience, engineering, computing, ethics, public policy, and the humanities to explore the brain and nervous system while addressing the societal and ethical dimensions of neuro-related research.

INNS builds on a foundation established over a decade ago, which first led to the GT-Neuro Initiative and later evolved into the Neuro Next Initiative. Over the past two years, this effort has culminated in the development of a comprehensive plan for an IRI, guided by an executive committee composed of faculty and staff from across Georgia Tech. The committee included Simon Sponberg, Dunn Family Associate Professor in the School of Physics and the School of Biological Sciences; Christopher Rozell, Julian T. Hightower Chaired Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering; Jennifer Singh, associate professor in the School of History and Sociology; and Sarah Peterson, Neuro Next Initiative program manager. Their leadership shaped the vision for a research community both scientifically ambitious and socially responsive.

INNS will serve as a dynamic hub for interdisciplinary collaboration across the full spectrum of brain-related research — from biological foundations to behavior and cognition, and from fundamental research to medical innovations that advance human flourishing. Research areas will encompass the foundations of human intelligence and movement, bio-inspired design and neurotechnology development, and the ethical dimensions of a neuro-connected future. 

By integrating technical innovation with human-centered inquiry, INNS is committed to ensuring that advances in neuroscience and neurotechnology are developed and applied ethically and responsibly. Through fostering innovation, cultivating interdisciplinary expertise, and engaging with the public, the institute seeks to shape a future where advancements in neuroscience and neurotechnology serve the greater good. INNS also aims to deepen Georgia Tech’s collaborations with clinical, academic, and industry partners, creating new pathways for translational research and real-world impact.

An internal search for INNS’s inaugural executive director is in the final stages, with an announcement expected soon.

Join our mailing list to receive the latest updates on everything neuro at Georgia Tech.

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What happens when a country seeks to develop a peaceful nuclear energy program? Every peaceful program starts with a promise not to build a nuclear weapon. Then, the global community verifies that stated intent via the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

Once a country signs the treaty, the world’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, provides continuous and technical proof that the country’s nuclear program is peaceful.

The IAEA ensures that countries operate their programs within the limits of nonproliferation agreements: low enrichment and no reactor misuse. Part of the agreement allows the IAEA to inspect nuclear-related sites, including unannounced surprise visits.

These are not just log reviews. Inspectors know what should and should not be there. When the IAEA is not on site, cameras, tamper-revealing seals on equipment and real-time radiation monitors are working full-time to gather or verify inside information about the program’s activities.

Safeguards Toolkit

The IAEA safeguards toolkit is designed to detect proliferation activities early. Much of the work is fairly technical. The safeguards toolkit combines physical surveillance, material tracking, data analytics and scientific sampling. Inspectors are chemists, physicists and nuclear engineers. They count spent fuel rods in a cooling pond. They check tamper seals on centrifuges. Often, the inspectors walk miles through hallways and corridors carrying heavy equipment.

That’s how the world learned in April 2021 about Iran pushing uranium enrichment from reactor-fuel-grade to near-weapons-grade levels. IAEA inspectors were able to verify that Iran was feeding uranium into a series of centrifuges designed to enrich the uranium from 5%, used for energy programs, to 60%, which is a step toward the 90% level used in nuclear weapons.

Around the facilities, whether for uranium enrichment or plutonium processing, closed-circuit surveillance cameras monitor for undeclared materials or post-work activities. Seals around the facilities provide evidence that uranium gas cylinders have not been tampered with or that centrifuges operate at the declared levels. Beyond seals, online enrichment monitors allow inspectors to look inside of centrifuges for any changes in the declared enrichment process.

Seals verify whether nuclear equipment or materials have been used between onsite inspections.

When the inspectors are on-site, they collect environmental swipes: samples of nuclear materials on surfaces, in dust or in the air. These can reveal if uranium has been enriched to levels beyond those allowed by the agreement. Or if plutonium, which is not used in nuclear power plants, is being produced in a reactor. Swipes are precise. They can identify enrichment levels from a particle smaller than a speck of dust. But they take time, days or weeks. Inspectors analyze the samples at the IAEA’s laboratories using sophisticated equipment called mass spectrometers.

In addition to physical samples, IAEA inspectors look at the logs of material inventories. They look for diversion of uranium or plutonium from normal process lines, just like accountants trace the flow of finances, except that their verification is supported by the ever-watching online monitors and radiation sensors. They also count items of interest and weigh them for additional verification of the logs.

Beyond accounting for materials, IAEA inspectors verify that the facility matches the declared design. For example, if a country is expanding centrifuge halls to increase its enrichment capabilities, that’s a red flag. Changes to the layout of material processing laboratories near nuclear reactors could be a sign that the program is preparing to produce unauthorized plutonium.

Losing Access

Iran announced on June 28, 2025, that it has ended its cooperation with the IAEA. It removed the monitoring devices, including surveillance cameras, from centrifuge halls. This move followed the news by the IAEA that Iran’s enrichment activities are well outside of allowed levels. Iran now operates sophisticated uranium centrifuges, like models IR-6 and IR-9.

Removing IAEA access means that the international community loses insight into how quickly Iran’s program can accumulate weapon-grade uranium, or how much it has produced. Also lost is information about whether the facility is undergoing changes for proliferation purposes. These processes are difficult to detect with external surveillance, like satellites, alone.

A satellite view of Iran’s Arak Nuclear Complex, which has a reactor capable of producing plutonium. Satellite image (c) 2025 Maxar Technologies via Getty Images

An alternative to the uranium enrichment path for producing nuclear weapons material is plutonium. Plutonium can’t be mined, it has to be produced in a nuclear reactor. Iran built a reactor capable of producing plutonium, the IR-40 Heavy Water Research Reactor at the Arak Nuclear Complex.

Iran modified the Arak reactor under the now-defunct Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action to make plutonium production less likely. During the June 2025 missile attacks, Israel targeted Arak’s facilities with the aim of eliminating the possibility of plutonium production.

With IAEA access suspended, it won’t be possible to see what happens inside the facility. Can the reactor be used for plutonium production? Although a lengthier process than the uranium enrichment path, plutonium provides a parallel path to uranium enrichment for developing nuclear weapons.

Continuity of Knowledge

North Korea expelled IAEA inspectors in 2009. Within a few years, they restarted activities related to uranium enrichment and plutonium production in the Yongbyon reactor. The international community’s information about North Korea’s weapons program now relies solely on external methods: satellite images, radioactive particles like xenon – airborne fingerprints of nuclear activities – and seismic data.

What is lost is the continuity of the knowledge, a chain of verification over time. Once the seals are broken or cameras are removed, that chain is lost, and so is confidence about what is happening at the facilities.

When it comes to IAEA inspections, there is no single tool that paints the whole picture. Surveillance plus sampling plus accounting provide validation and confidence. Losing even one weakens the system in the long term.

The existing safeguards regime is meant to detect violations. The countries that sign the nonproliferation treaty know that they are always watched, and that plays a deterrence role. The inspectors can’t just resume the verification activities after some time if access is lost. Future access won’t necessarily enable inspectors to clarify what happened during the gap.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The assessment, funded by the city’s Tree Recompense Fund, uses advanced remote sensing tools such as WorldView-2 satellite data and a random forest classification model to categorize land into three land cover types. These include tree canopy, non-tree vegetation (grass, shrubs, and low lying vegetation) and non-vegetation (water, pervious surface). The methodology delivers a detailed spatial picture of land cover across the city.

“This is simply a tool in their planning arsenal,” said Anthony Giarrusso, who has led every canopy study since 2008. “Before they did any of this work in 2008, everything was anecdotal. It was reactionary.”

The new study is not advocacy — it’s information. Giarrusso emphasized that while researchers stay neutral in the politics of urban growth and conservation, their work equips city leaders with science-based knowledge to make more effective zoning and planning decisions.

In addition to mapping existing conditions, the Georgia Tech team developed the Potential Planting Index (PPI), a scalable tool that identifies where tree planting is physically possible based on current land cover. The tool quantifies the difference between tree canopy and non-tree vegetation, indicating zones with restoration potential.

Another key insight is the challenge of interpreting canopy change without understanding land use patterns. “It gives you a false sense of stability if you don’t understand the underlying land use,” said Giarrusso. “You might see canopy regrowth on paper, but that land could be cleared again tomorrow.” He explained that this false signal is particularly common in stalled development sites: “We saw a lot of properties where trees had regrown after initial clearing, but it was temporary and monoculture, low quality canopy. Several of those areas were cleared again for construction later.”

Giarrusso pointed to these “loss-gain-loss” cycles as one of the more misleading aspects of tree canopy analysis without strong land use context. “Some of them were pipe farms — land cleared for development with infrastructure like water and sewer lines installed, but then construction never happened. So trees grow back, and you get a canopy gain that doesn’t last and is nowhere near the quality of the trees originally cleared.”

He stressed that policymakers need to consider the permanence of canopy when using the data. “If it’s just going to be cleared again in two years, it’s not really a gain. That’s why long-term tracking and land use analysis together are so important.”

The city has incorporated these tools into broader planning efforts, including zoning reform and tree ordinance revisions. The research supports recommendations such as restricting full lot clearing in certain zoning categories and adjusting setback or lot coverage limits to better preserve existing canopy.

Giarrusso underscored the urgency of protecting larger, intact forested tracts. “If you can see it from space and it’s still forest — save it,” he said. “Once it’s cleared, you don’t get it back.”

For centuries, farmers have neutralized soil acidity with a practice called liming. It involves mixing crushed calcium- or magnesium-rich rocks, known as limestone, into the soil to balance pH. But liming has long been an assumed tradeoff in which removing acid also meant increasing carbon emissions into the atmosphere.

New research from Georgia Tech shows that the opposite may be true. Agricultural liming can actually reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide and improve crop yield. 

“The current thinking about liming is that farmers must choose between doing something that could benefit them economically or reducing their greenhouse gas emissions,” said Chris Reinhard, an associate professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. “But this is often a false choice. They can do both.”

The researchers published a new framework for the potential role of liming in food security and greenhouse gas mitigation in August in the paper, “Using Carbonates for Carbon Removal,” in Nature Water. 

Collecting Carbon Data

The framework is based in part on ongoing work Reinhard and his collaborators are pursuing on the impacts of agricultural liming in the Upper Midwest’s Corn Belt for a Department of Energy study. With funding from the Grantham Foundation, they’re now turning their attention to local farms in southern Georgia and North Carolina. 

For each farm, the researchers measure data that most farmers would collect already, like soil pH and nutrients. But the team also tracks more specialized measurements, including trace elements and greenhouse gas fluxes in the soil. All this data is matched to a high-resolution, machine learning grid of the farm’s geography to determine exactly which crops might benefit. 

The researchers are using the data to build a computer model that predicts how carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases will move through any particular soil system. Liming won’t universally absorb carbon dioxide — or if it does, there may be an occasional time delay between carbon emissions and absorption — which is why the researchers factor soil, crop rotation, climate, and other management practices into their calculations.

“Our goal is to develop a way that farmers can monitor and plan cheaply, and largely through techniques they are already using, so we don't have to send out a whole team to gather data,” Reinhard said. “We are trying to develop a predictive model architecture for planning agricultural practice across scales, but it’s important that the techniques required on the field are actually feasible for farmers.”

This data could be pivotal for farmers, and it could also help policymakers as they address farming subsidies and foreign aid funding. Globally, food-insecure regions like sub-Saharan Africa could become more self-sufficient with more liming. Farmers in parts of the U.S. could also improve their yields and, in effect, their profits, if they limed more fields. 

The added benefit of lowering carbon could get even more farmers on board, and there is extensive exploration and implementation of agricultural practices already on voluntary and governmental carbon markets. Carbon dioxide is only one greenhouse gas that liming can lower; researchers are also exploring how liming can reduce methane and nitrous oxide — the latter of which is a key climate impact of human agriculture and is often considered a “hard-to-abate” emission. 

Liming may be a centuries-old practice, but its applications are potentially much wider than initially believed. In the future, farming may be part of the answer to reducing carbon emissions, instead of part of the problem. 

Their findings, published this month in the journal Science, help explain how small particle pollution — think industrial emissions and car exhaust, wildfires and burning wood for heat and cooking — can lead to Lewy body dementia, a devastating disease that causes toxic clumps of protein to destroy nerve cells in the brain. 

"Epidemiological studies have suggested a strong link between air pollution and dementia, but what sets this study apart is that we also provide a convincing biological mechanism,” says Pengfei Liu, assistant professor School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and one of the study’s co-authors. “This collaborative work shows that fine particulate matter from different geographic regions consistently triggers a specific stain of misfolded protein that drives Lewy body dementia." 

The work has “profound implications” for helping scientists and policy makers better understand measures to prevent this type of dementia, which is among the most common forms of the disease and affects millions of people around the world.

Along with Liu, the research team from Georgia Tech includes Rodney Weber, professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences; Minhan Park, a postdoctoral research fellow co-advised by Liu and Weber; Bin Bai, a graduate student in Liu’s lab; and Ma Cristine Faye Denna, a graduate student in Weber’s lab.

“Figuring out how exposure to atmospheric aerosols might be linked to dementia, and what mechanisms are involved, is a complex and challenging problem — and as this study shows, it takes a large team with many different areas of expertise,” Weber adds.

Learn more:

• Science: Lewy body dementia promotion by air pollutants
• Johns Hopkins Medicine newsroom
• Columbia University newsroom
• Press: The Guardian

“Peatlands are essential carbon stores, but as temperatures warm, this carbon is in danger of being released as carbon dioxide and methane,” says Kostka, who is also the associate chair for Research in the School of Biological Sciences and the director of Georgia Tech for Georgia’s Tomorrow. Understanding the ratio of carbon dioxide to methane is critical, he adds, because while both are greenhouse gasses, methane is significantly more potent.

Kostka is the corresponding author of a new study unearthing how and why peatlands are producing carbon dioxide and methane. 

The research, “Northern peatland microbial communities exhibit resistance to warming and acquire electron acceptors from soil organic matter,” was published this summer in Nature Communications, and was led by co-first authors Borja Aldeguer-Riquelme, a postdoctoral research associate in the Environmental Microbial Genomics Laboratory, and Katherine Duchesneau, a Ph.D. student in the School of Biological Sciences.

The study builds on a decade of research at the Oak Ridge National Lab’s Spruce and Peatland Responses Under Changing Environments (SPRUCE) experiment, a long-term research project in Minnesota that allows researchers to warm whole sections of wetland from tree top to bog bottom.

“Over the past 10 years, we’ve shown that warming in this large-scale climate experiment increases greenhouse gas production,” Kostka says. “But while warming makes the bog produce more methane, we still observe a lot more CO2 production than methane. In this paper, we take a critical step towards discovering why — and describing the mechanisms that determine which gases are released and in what amounts.”

Methane mystery

The subdued methane production in peatlands has been a long-standing mystery. In water-saturated wetlands, oxygen is scarce, but microbes still need to respire — a type of ‘breathing’ that allows them to produce energy for metabolic function. Without oxygen, microbes use nitrate, sulfate, or metals to respire — still releasing carbon dioxide in the process. However, if these ingredients aren’t present, microbes ‘breathe’ in a way that releases methane.

Since nitrate, sulfate, and metals are relatively rare in peatlands, methane production should be the most likely pathway, but surprisingly, observations show the opposite. “In both fieldwork and lab experiments, peatlands produce much more carbon dioxide than methane,” Kostka explains. “It’s puzzling because the soil conditions should help methane production dominate.”

To solve this mystery, the team leveraged a suite of cutting-edge genetic tools called “omics” —  metagenomics (studying DNA), metatranscriptomics (studying RNA), and metabolomics (a technique used to study the “leftovers” of metabolism), providing a detailed look under the hood of the microbial “engine” that cycles organic matter in wetlands. It also gave a new window into the diversity of soil microbes in wetlands: 80 percent of the organisms identified in the study were new at the genus level.

‘Omics’ innovations

Over the course of several years, the team collected samples from a peatland enclosed in an experimental chamber that was slowly warmed, then analyzed the samples using omics to see how they changed. Initially, they hypothesized that warming the soil would cause microbial communities to change quickly. “Microbes can evolve and grow rapidly,” Kostka says. “But that didn’t happen.”

The DNA-based methods showed that while the microbial communities stayed largely stable, the bog did release more greenhouse gasses as it warmed. To assess the metabolic potential of the microbes, Duchesneau and Aldeguer-Riquelme constructed microbial genomes, investigating how they were decomposing the organic matter in peatlands and cycling carbon.

“We found that microbial activity increases with warming, but the growth response of microbial communities lags behind these changes in physiological or metabolic activity,” Kostka says. He cautions that this doesn’t necessarily mean that wetland communities won’t change as climates warm — just that these shifts might come behind metabolic ones. 

A diversity of discoveries

And the methane? The team believes that microbes may be breaking down organic matter to access the key ingredients for producing carbon dioxide — nitrate, sulfate, and metals — though more research is currently underway to investigate this.

“Doing this type of integrated omics research in soil systems is still incredibly difficult,” Kostka says. The challenge is multifaceted: the research leverages years of experiments, long-term datasets, advanced laboratory techniques, and fieldwork innovations. 

At SPRUCE, experimental chambers are about 1,000 square feet. While it’s an impressive experimental setup, researchers still must be careful: “We need to take soil samples for many years, so if we take too many, there’d be no soil left!” Kostka explains. “Part of our research involves developing better, non-destructive sampling techniques.”

The other challenge lies in what makes these peatlands so unique: it’s very hard to detect small changes because of the sheer diversity of organisms present. “Every time we conduct this type of research, we learn more about these incredible systems,” he says. “There’s always something new.”

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-61664-7

Funding: The Office of Biological and Environmental Research, Terrestrial Ecosystem Science Program and Genomic Science programs, under the US Department of Energy (DOE); the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, a DOE Office of Science User Facility sponsored by the Biological and Environmental Research program. The SPRUCE experiment is funded by the Biological and Environmental Research program in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.

Some major oil companies such as Shell and BP that once were touted as leading the way in clean energy investments are now pulling back from those projects to refocus on oil and gas production. Others, such as Exxon Mobil and Chevron, have concentrated on oil and gas but announced recent investments in carbon capture projects, as well as in lithium and graphite production for electric vehicle batteries.

National oil companies have also been investing in renewable energy. For example, Saudi Aramco has invested in clean energy while at the same time asserting that it’s unrealistic to phase out oil and gas entirely.

But the larger question is why oil companies would invest in clean energy at all, especially at a time when many federal clean energy incentives are being eliminated and climate science is being dismantled, at least in the United States.

Some answers depend on whom you ask. More traditional petroleum industry followers would urge the companies to keep focused on their core fossil fuel businesses to meet growing energy demand and corresponding near-term shareholder returns. Other shareholders and stakeholders concerned about sustainability and the climate – including an increasing number of companies with sustainability goals – would likely point out the business opportunities for clean energy to meet global needs.

Other answers depend on the particular company itself. Very small producers have different business plans than very large private and public companies. Geography and regional policies can also play a key role. And government-owned companies such as Saudi Aramco, Gazprom and the China National Petroleum Corp. control the majority of the world’s oil and gas resources with revenues that support their national economies.

Despite the relatively modest scale of investment in clean energy by oil and gas companies so far, there are several business reasons oil companies would increase their investments in clean energy over time.

The oil and gas industry has provided energy that has helped create much of modern society and technology, though those advances have also come with significant environmental and social costs. My own experience in the oil industry gave me insight into how at least some of these companies try to reconcile this tension and to make strategic portfolio decisions regarding what “green” technologies to invest in. Now the managing director and a professor of the practice at the Ray C. Anderson Center for Sustainable Business at Georgia Tech, I seek ways to eliminate the boundaries and identify mutually reinforcing innovations among business interests and environmental concerns.

Diversification and Financial Drivers

Just like financial advisers tell you to diversify your 401(k) investments, companies do so to weather different kinds of volatility, from commodity prices to political instability. Oil and gas markets are notoriously cyclical, so investments in clean energy can hedge against these shifts for companies and investors alike.

Clean energy can also provide opportunities for new revenue. Many customers want to buy clean energy, and oil companies want to be positioned to cash in as this transition occurs. By developing employees’ expertise and investing in emerging technologies, they can be ready for commercial opportunities in biofuels, renewable natural gas, hydrogen and other pathways that may overlap with their existing, core business competencies.

Fossil fuel companies have also found what other companies have: Clean energy can reduce costs. Some oil companies not only invest in energy efficiency for their buildings but use solar or wind to power their wells. And adding renewable energy to their activities can also lower the cost of investing in these companies.

Public Pressure

All companies, including those in oil and gas, are under growing pressure to address climate change, from the public, from other companies with whom they do business and from government regulators – at least outside the U.S. For example, campaigns seeking to reduce investment in fossil fuels are increasing along with climate-related lawsuits. Government policies focused on both mitigating carbon emissions and enhancing energy independence are also making headway in some locations.

In response, many oil companies are reducing their own operational emissions and setting targets to offset or eliminate emissions from products that they sell – though many observers question the viability of these commitments. Other companies are investing in emerging technologies such as hydrogen and methods to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere

Some companies, such as BP and Equinor, have previously even gone so far as rebranding themselves and acquiring clean energy businesses. But those efforts have also been criticized as “greenwashing,” taking actions for public relations value rather than real results.

How Far Can This Go?

It is even possible for a fossil fuel company to reinvent itself as a clean energy operation. Denmark’s Orsted – formerly known as Danish Oil and Natural Gas – transitioned from fossil fuels to become a global leader in offshore wind. The company, whose majority owner is the Danish government, made the shift, however, with the help of significant public and political support.

But most large oil companies aren’t likely to completely reinvent themselves anytime soon. Making that change requires leadership, investor pressure, customer demand and shifts in government policy, such as putting a price or tax on carbon emissions.

To show students in my sustainability classes how companies’ choices affect both the environment and the industry as a whole, I use the MIT Fishbanks simulation. Students run fictional fishing companies competing for profit. Even when they know the fish population is finite, they overfish, leading to the collapse of the fishery and its businesses. Short-term profits cause long-term disaster for the fishery and the businesses that depend on it.

The metaphor for oil and gas is clear: As fossil fuels continue to be extracted and burned, they release planet-warming emissions, harming the planet as a whole. They also pose substantial business risks to the oil and gas industry itself.

Yet students in a recent class showed me that a more collective way of thinking may be possible. Teams voluntarily reduced their fishing levels to preserve long-term business and environmental sustainability, and they even cooperated with their competitors. They did so without in-game regulatory threats, shareholder or customer complaints, or lawsuits.

Their shared understanding that the future of their own fishing companies was at stake makes me hopeful that this type of leadership may take hold in real companies and the energy system as a whole. But the question remains about how fast that change can happen, amid the accelerating global demand for more energy along with the increasing urgency and severity of climate change and its effects.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Professor Yuhang Wang and his team studied the factors affecting SO₂ and sulfate concentrations during winter and summer in the “Rust Belt” — from New York through the Midwest — and the Southeast regions of the U.S. over two decades (2004 to 2023). Supported by the National Science Foundation and Georgia Tech’s Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems, the team also developed an ensemble machine learning approach to project seasonal patterns until 2050. 

“Power plants, particularly those burning coal and oil, are a major source of SO₂ emissions in these regions,” says Wang, who co-authored, with Ph.D. students Fanghe Zhao and Shengjun Xi, the study recently published in Environmental Science & Technology Letters. 

Seasonal differences in atmospheric chemistry 

In the U.S., the chemistry in the atmosphere varies among the seasons. During summer, solar radiation from ample sunlight activates oxidant reactions that produce hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) in the atmosphere. The supply of H₂O₂ is determined by the amount of emitted air pollution, and once in the atmosphere, H₂O₂ can oxidize SO₂ quickly into sulfate aerosols in the aqueous phase. 

Sulfate aerosols from the oxidation of SO₂ contribute to the formation of particulate matter less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter (PM2.5). Particulate sulfate poses significant environmental and public health risks, including air pollution, acid rain, and circulatory and respiratory issues. 

“The supply of H₂O₂ in summer is eight times greater than in winter — a huge difference — which means sulfate concentrations are generally higher in summer and a reduction in SO₂ emissions leads to a proportional decrease in sulfate concentrations,” explains Wang. “When SO₂ emissions exceed the available supply of H₂O₂ in winter, the reduction in sulfate concentrations can be much smaller because of a ‘chemical damping’ effect that causes sulfate levels to decline more slowly than SO₂ emissions.” 

Narrowing the disparities between seasonal sulfate levels 

The study’s two-decade observations revealed distinct patterns in the reduction of SO₂ emissions and sulfate concentrations during winter and summer. 

While SO₂ emissions significantly decreased in both seasons­ over time — primarily from the Clean Air Act and more power plants transitioning from coal to natural gas — the reduction of sulfate concentrations initially showed large seasonal differences. However, over the past decade, the disparity between winter and summer sulfate levels narrowed as SO₂ emissions decreased.

According to Wang, the seasonal disparity of sulfate was caused by changing chemical regimes in winter over time. Although the lower supply of H₂O₂ remained stable in winter, SO₂ wintertime emissions were higher from 2004 to 2013, then dropped below the level of H₂O₂ after 2013 — reaching parity with the levels of reduced SO₂ emissions in the summer. 

“When you have this complexity of atmospheric chemistry, there is a non-linear effect in winter — as SO₂ emissions decreased, sulfate aerosol production efficiency increased until 2013, then flattened as of today. The reduction in sulfate aerosols initially lagged behind the decrease in SO₂ emissions but eventually caught up as a result of sustained air quality control efforts,” says Wang. “Conversely, there is a simple, linear effect in summer — the more SO₂ emissions, the more sulfate aerosols in the atmosphere — and if you reduce one, the other is reduced by the same proportion.”

Decades-long full impact 

From now until 2050, the researchers’ machine learning projections indicate a continuing decrease of winter and summer sulfate levels, which are currently around 20 percent, as SO₂ emission controls achieve comparable efficacy across the seasons. 

“We’re now seeing the full impact from the Clean Air Act,” concludes Wang, “and the nation’s sustained effort in pollution reduction is key to improving air quality and health outcomes.”

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Imagine stepping into a space the size of multiple football fields — only instead of turf and goalposts, it’s filled with science. Every inch is alive with posters, equipment demos, and researchers sharing the latest breakthroughs.  

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From fighter jets to medical devices, today’s most advanced machines depend on parts as intricate as their missions. These components aren’t just geometrically complex — they’re made from specialized metals engineered to withstand extreme heat, friction, and wear. But that strength comes with a challenge. How do you shape metals tough enough to survive the heat of a jet engine? 

Lung-on-a-chip platforms provide researchers a window into organ behavior. They are about the size of a postage stamp, etched with tiny channels and lined with living human cells. Roy and Singh’s innovation was adding a working immune system — the missing piece that turns a chip into a true model of how the lung fights disease.

Now, researchers can watch how lungs respond to threats, how inflammation spreads, and how healing begins.
 

The Human Stakes

For millions of people struggling with lung disease, everyday life can feel nearly impossible, whether it’s climbing stairs, carrying groceries, or even laughing too hard. Doctors and scientists have attempted for decades to unlock what really happens inside fragile lungs.

"This unique lung-on-a-chip model opens new, preclinical pathways of discovery that will allow researchers to better understand the interplay of immune responses to severe viral infections and evaluate critical antiviral treatments,” said Roy.

For Singh, the Carl Ring Family Professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering with a joint appointment in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, this research is deeply personal. He lost an uncle when an infection overwhelmed his cancer-weakened immune system.

“That experience stays with you,” Singh reflected. “It made me want to build systems that could predict and prevent outcomes like that, so fewer families go through what mine did. I think about my uncle all the time. If work like this means fewer families lose someone they love, then it’s worth everything.”

That motivation pushed his team to reimagine what a lung-on-a-chip could do, setting the stage for the breakthroughs that followed.
 

When the Lung Fought Back

The turning point came when Roy’s and Singh’s team peered through a microscope and saw something no one had ever witnessed on a chip: blood and immune cells coursing through tiny vessel-like structures, behaving just as they do in a living lung.

For years, researchers had struggled to add immunity to organ-on-a-chip systems. Immune cells often died quickly or failed to circulate and interact with tissue the way they do in people. the team solved that problem, creating a chip where immune cells could survive and coordinate a defense.

“It was an amazing breakthrough moment,” Singh said.

The true test came when the team introduced a severe influenza virus infection. The lung mounted an immune response that closely mirrored what doctors see in patients. Immune cells rushed to the site of infection, inflammation spread through tissue, and defenses activated in response.

“That was when we realized this wasn’t just a model,” Singh said. “It was capturing the real biology of disease.”

Singh and Roy’s research is published in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering.
 

A More Human Approach

For decades, lung research has relied on animal models. But mice don’t get asthma like children. Their bodies don’t mount the same defenses.

“Five mice in a cage may respond the same way, but five humans won’t,” Singh explained. “Our chip can reflect that difference. That’s what makes it more accurate, and why it could dramatically reduce the need for animal models.”

Krish Roy emphasized its potential.

“The Food and Drug Administration’s strategic vision on reducing animal testing and developing predictive non-animal models aligns perfectly with our work. This device goes further than ever before in modeling human severe influenza and providing unprecedented insights into the complex lung immune response,” he said.

Fighting More Than the Flu

What began with influenza now expands to a wider range of diseases. Roy and Singh believes the platform can be used to study asthma, cystic fibrosis, lung cancer, and tuberculosis. The researchers are also working to integrate immune organs, showing how the lung coordinates with the body’s defenses.

The long-term vision is personalized medicine: chips built from a patient’s own cells to predict which therapy will work best. Scaling, clinical validation, and regulatory approval will take years, but Singh is undeterred.

“Imagine knowing which treatment will help you before you ever take it,” Singh said. “That’s where we’re headed.”

Where we’re headed, the future doesn’t wait for illness. Instead, it anticipates it, intercepts it, and rewrites the outcome.

Georgia Tech postdoctoral researcher Rachel Ringquist was the first author leading the study.

This research was supported by Wellcome Leap, with additional funding from the National Institutes of Health, Carl Ring Family Endowment, and the Marcus Foundation.

Ringquist, R., Bhatia, E., Chatterjee, P. et al. An immune-competent lung-on-a-chip for modelling the human severe influenza infection response. Nature Biomedical Engineering, September 2025 Vol.9 No.9

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41551-025-01491-9

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Inspired by SpaceX’s Super Heavy booster, a team led by Georgia Tech’s Spencer Bryngelson and New York University’s Florian Schäfer modeled the turbulent interactions of a 33-engine rocket. Their experiment set new records, running the largest ever fluid dynamics simulation by a factor of 20 and the fastest by over a factor of four.

The team ran its custom software on the world’s two fastest supercomputers, as well as the eighth fastest, to construct such a massive model.

Applications from the simulation reach beyond rocket science. The same computing methods can model fluid mechanics in aerospace, medicine, energy, and other fields. At the same time, the work advances understanding of the current limits and future potential of computing. 

The team finished as runners-up for the 2025 Gordon Bell Prize for its impactful, multi-domain research. Referred to as the Nobel Prize of supercomputing, the award was presented at the world’s top conference for high-performance computing (HPC) research.

“Fluid dynamics problems of this style, with shocks, turbulence, different interacting fluids, and so on, are a scientific mainstay that marshals our largest supercomputers,” said Bryngelson, an assistant professor with the School of Computational Science and Engineering (CSE).

“Larger and faster simulations that enable solutions to long-standing scientific problems, like the rocket propulsion problem, are always needed. With our work, perhaps we took a big dent out of that issue.”

The Super Heavy booster reflects the space industry’s move toward reusable multi-engine first-stage rockets that are easier to transport and more economical overall. 

However, this shift creates research and testing challenges for new designs.

Each of Super Heavy’s 33 thrusters expels propellant at ten times the speed of sound. As individual engines reach extreme temperatures, pressures, and densities, their combined interactions with the airframe make such violent physics even more unpredictable.

Frequent physical experiments would be expensive and risky, so scientists rely on computer models to supplement the engineering process. 

Bryngelson’s flagship Multicomponent Flow Code (MFC) software anchored the experiment. MFC is an open-source computer program that simulates fluid dynamic models. Bryngelson’s lab has been modifying MFC since 2022 to run on more powerful computers and solve larger problems. 

In computing terms, this MFC-enhanced model simulated fluid flow resolution at 200 trillion grid points and one quadrillion degrees of freedom. These metrics exceeded previous record-setting benchmarks that tallied 10 trillion and 30 trillion grid points.

This means MFC simulations provide greater detail and capture smaller-scale features than previous approaches. The rocket simulation also ran four times faster and achieved 5.7 times the energy efficiency of comparable methods.   

Integrating information geometric regularization (IGR) into MFC played a key role in attaining these results. This new approach improved the simulation’s computational efficiency and overcame the challenge of shock dynamics.

In fluid mechanics, shock waves occur when objects move faster than the speed of sound. Along with hampering the performance of airframes and propulsion systems, shocks have historically been difficult to simulate.

Computational scientists have used empirical models based on artificial viscosity to account for shocks. Although these approaches mimic the physical effects of shock waves at the microscopic scale, they struggle to effectively capture the large-scale features of the flow. 

Information geometry uses curved spaces to study concepts of statistics and information. IGR uses these tools to modify the underlying geometry in fluid dynamics equations. When traveling in the modified geometry, fluid in the model preserves the shocks in a more natural way. 

“When regularizing shocks to much larger scales relevant in these numerical simulations, conventional methods smear out important fine-scale details,” said Schäfer, an assistant professor at NYU’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences.

“IGR introduces ideas from abstract math to CFD that allow creating modified paths that approach the singularity without ever reaching it. In the resulting fluid flow, shocks never become too spiky in simulations, but the fine-scale details do not smear out either.” 

Simulating a model this large required the Georgia Tech researchers to run MFC on El Capitan and Frontier, the world's two fastest supercomputers. 

The systems are two of four exascale machines in existence. This means they can solve at least one quintillion (“1” followed by 18 zeros) calculations per second. If a person completed a simple math calculation every second, it would take that person about 30 billion years to reach one quintillion operations.

Frontier is housed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and debuted as the world’s first exascale supercomputer in 2022. El Capitan surpassed Frontier when Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory launched it in 2024.

To prepare MFC for performance on these machines, Bryngelson’s lab followed a methodical approach spanning years of hardware acquisition and software engineering. 

In 2022, Bryngelson attained an AMD MI210 GPU accelerator. Optimizing MFC on the component played a critical step toward preparing the software for exascale machines.

AMD hardware underpins both El Capitan and Frontier. The MI300A GPU powers El Capitan while Frontier uses the MI250X GPU. 

After configuring MFC on the MI210 GPU, Bryngelson’s lab ran the software on Frontier for the first time during a 2023 hackathon. This confirmed the code was ready for full-scale deployment on exascale supercomputers based on AMD hardware. 

In addition to El Capitan and Frontier, the simulation ran on Alps, the world’s eight-fastest supercomputer based at the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre. It is the largest available system that features the NVIDIA GH200 Grace Hopper Superchip.

Like with AMD GPUs, Bryngelson acquired four GH200s in 2024 and began configuring MFC to the latest hardware innovation powering New Age supercomputers. Later that year, the Jülich Research Centre accepted Bryngelson’s group into an early access program to test JUPITER, a developing supercomputer based on the NVIDIA superchip.

The group earned a certificate for scaling efficiency and node performance on the way toward validating that their code worked on the GH200. The early access project proved successful for JUPITER, which launched in 2025 as Europe’s fastest supercomputer and fourth fastest in the world.

“Getting the level of hands-on experience with world-leading supercomputers and computing resources at Georgia Tech through this project has been a fantastic opportunity for a grad student,” said CSE Ph.D. student Ben Wilfong.

“To leverage these machines, I learned more advanced programming techniques that I’m glad to have in my tool belt for future projects. I also enjoyed the opportunity to work closely with and learn from industry experts from NVIDIA, AMD, and HPE/Cray.”

El Capitan, Frontier, JUPITER, and Alps maintained their rankings at the 2025 International Conference for High Performance Computing Networking, Storage and Analysis (SC25). Of note, the TOP500 announced at SC25 that JUPITER surpassed the exaflop threshold. 

The SC Conference Series is one of two venues where the TOP500 announces updated supercomputer rankings every June and November. The TOP500 ranks and details the 500 most powerful supercomputers in the world. 

The SC Conference Series serves as the venue where the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) presents the Gordon Bell Prize. The annual award recognizes achievement in HPC research and application. The Tech-led team was among eight finalists for this year’s award.

Along with Bryngelson, Georgia Tech members included Ph.D. students Anand Radhakrishnan and Wilfong, postdoctoral researcher Daniel Vickers, alumnus Henry Le Berre (CS 2025), and undergraduate student Tanush Prathi.

Schäfer’s partnership with the group stems from his previous role as an assistant professor at Georgia Tech from 2021 to 2025. 

Collaborators on the project included Nikolaos Tselepidis and Benedikt Dorschner from NVIDIA, Reuben Budiardja from ORNL, Brian Cornille from AMD, and Stephen Abbot from HPE. All were co-authors of the paper and named finalists for the Gordon Bell Prize. 

“I’m elated that we have been nominated for such a prestigious award. It wouldn't have been possible without the combined and diligent efforts of our team,” Radhakrishnan said. 

“I’m looking forward to presenting our work at SC25 and connecting with other researchers and fellow finalists while showcasing seminal work in the field of computing.”

Countries around the world have been discussing the need to rein in climate change for three decades, yet global greenhouse gas emissions – and global temperatures with them – keep rising.

When it seems like we’re getting nowhere, it’s useful to step back and examine the progress that has been made.

Let’s take a look at the United States, historically the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter. Over those three decades, the U.S. population soared by 28% and the economy, as measured by gross domestic product adjusted for inflation, more than doubled.

Yet U.S. emissions from many of the activities that produce greenhouse gases – transportation, industry, agriculture, heating and cooling of buildings – have remained about the same over the past 30 years. Transportation is a bit up; industry a bit down. And electricity, once the nation’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, has seen its emissions drop significantly.

Overall, the U.S. is still among the countries with the highest per capita emissions, so there’s room for improvement, and its emissions haven’t fallen enough to put the country on track to meet its pledges under the 10-year-old Paris climate agreement. But U.S. emissions are down about 15% over the past 10 years.

Here’s how that happened:

US Electricity Emissions Have Fallen

U.S. electricity use has been rising lately with the shift toward more electrification of cars and heating and cooling and expansion of data centers, yet greenhouse gas emissions from electricity are down by almost 30% since 1995.

One of the main reasons for this big drop is that Americans are using less coal and more natural gas to make electricity.

Both coal and natural gas are fossil fuels. Both release carbon dioxide to the atmosphere when they are burned to make electricity, and that carbon dioxide traps heat, raising global temperatures. But power plants can make electricity more efficiently using natural gas compared with coal, so it produces less emissions per unit of power.

Why did the U.S. start using more natural gas?

Research and technological innovation in fracking and horizontal drilling have allowed companies to extract more oil and gas at lower cost, making it cheaper to produce electricity from natural gas rather than coal.

As a result, utilities have built more natural gas power plants – especially super-efficient combined cycle gas power plants, which produce power from gas turbines and also capture waste heat from those turbines to generate more power. More coal plants have been shutting down or running less.

Because natural gas is a more efficient fuel than coal, it has been a win for climate in comparison, even though it’s a fossil fuel. The U.S. has reduced emissions from electricity as a result.

Significant improvements in energy efficiency, from appliances to lighting, have also played a role. Even though tech gadgets seem to be recharging everywhere all the time today, household electricity use, per person, plateaued over the first two decades of the 2000s after rising continuously since the 1940s.

Costs for Renewable Electricity, Batteries Fall

U.S. renewable electricity generation, including wind, solar and hydro power, has nearly tripled since 1995, helping to further reduce emissions from electricity generation.

Costs for solar and wind power have fallen so much that they are now cheaper than coal and competitive with natural gas. Fourteen states, including most of the Great Plains, now get at least 30% of their power from solar, wind and battery storage.

While wind power has been cost competitive with fossil fuels for at least 20 years, solar photovoltaic power has only been competitive with fossil fuels for about 10 years. So expect deployment of solar PV to continue to increase, both in the U.S. and internationally, even as U.S. federal subsidies disappear.

Both wind and solar provide intermittent power: The sun does not always shine, and the wind does not always blow. There are a number of ways utilities are dealing with this. One way is to use demand management, offering lower prices for power during off-peak periods or discounts for companies that can cut their power use during high demand. Virtual power plants aggregate several kinds of distributed energy resources – solar panels on homes, batteries and even smart thermostats – to manage power supply and demand. The U.S. had an estimated 37.5 gigawatts of virtual power plants in 2024, equivalent to about 37.5 nuclear power reactors.

Another energy management method is battery storage, which is just now beginning to take off. Battery costs have come down enough in the past few years to make utility-scale battery storage cost-effective.

What About Driving?

In the U.S., gasoline consumption has remained roughly constant but fuel efficiency has generally improved over the decades.

Sales of electric vehicle, which could cut emissions more, have been slow, however. Some of this could be due to the success of fracking: U.S. petroleum production has increased, and gasoline and diesel prices have remained relatively low.

People in other countries are switching to electric vehicles more rapidly than in the U.S. as the cost of EVs has fallen. Chinese consumers can buy an entry-level EV for under US$10,000 in China with the help of government subsidies, and the country leads the world in EV sales.

In 2024, people in the U.S. bought 1.6 million EVs, and global sales reached 17 million, up 25% from the year before.

The Unknowns Ahead: What About Data Centers?

The construction of new data centers, in part to serve the explosive growth of artificial intelligence, is drawing a lot of attention to future energy demand and to the uncertainty ahead.

Data centers are increasing electricity demand in some locations, such as northern Virginia, Dallas, Phoenix, Chicago and Atlanta. The future electricity demand growth from data centers is still unclear, though, meaning the effects of data centers on electric rates and power system emissions are also uncertain.

However, AI is not the only reason to watch for increased electricity demand: The U.S. can expect growing electricity demand for industrial processes and electric vehicles, as well as the overall transition from using oil and gas for heating and appliances to using electricity that continues across the country.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

This semester’s Capstone Design Expo showcased the ingenuity and problem-solving skills of more than 118 student teams across seven disciplines. Among them, 17 teams represented H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE), presenting a wide range of solutions, from optimizing scheduling for medical clinics, to refining inventory management for a major auto manufacturer, to enhancing sepsis detection through data-driven patient monitoring. 

This scenario becomes more likely for hospitals of all sizes as medical technology advances, adding more devices to constantly growing networks.

With the help of a contract award for up to $12 million from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) UPGRADE program, a team of researchers led by the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy at Georgia Tech will begin developing an advanced cybersecurity platform to help hospitals proactively identify and fix vulnerabilities in their software, devices, and networks. 

“This is a new area of security research,” said Associate Professor Brendan Saltaformaggio. “We not only have to worry about the cybersecurity aspect, but the physical security as well. Our research must be very accurate to make sure patients are safe from cyberthreats.” 

Starting next month, the team of researchers on the Hospital-Integrated Vulnerability Identification and Proactive Remediation (H-VIPER) project will begin developing a system they are calling the Whole-Hospital Simulation (WHS).

The system maps out the online network for hospitals of all sizes and enables IT teams to test their cyber capabilities before going live. The system can also identify threats, such as missed software updates, and alert the IT department.

“Hospitals have thousands of devices connected to their networks, including medical devices,” said Saltaformaggio. “A hospital like Children’s has a huge attack surface. A smaller hospital might have different challenges, but possible entry points are still there.”

The team has already interviewed IT teams at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and Hamilton Health Care System. Their findings have provided them with a better understanding of how to scale the WHS system to meet each hospital’s specific needs.

“Hospitals IT processes are notoriously sensitive to disruption, because essentially any kind of down time for rebooting a system or lack of availability can create chaos in the clinical environment,” said Stoddard Manikin, chief information security officer for Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.

“Our goal is to create very smooth processes and workflow for our patient facing staff and providers to deliver the best care possible. This research opportunity gives us a chance to develop news ways where we can look at these sensitive medical devices and things on the IT network in a healthcare environment and potentially remediate vulnerabilities without taking them out of service.” 

Saltaformaggio and his colleagues found that, regardless of size, security remains retroactive and not proactive. By leveraging their diverse expertise, the research team will ensure that the H-VIPER project addresses vulnerabilities at every layer of hospital technology, from the network to the hardware. 

The School of Cybersecurity and Privacy will lead this initiative, with faculty from the H-VIPER project also representing the College of Computing, the College of Engineering, the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the School of Computer Science, and the Georgia Tech Research Institute, along with support from their Ph.D. students and postdoctoral researchers. 

Around 30 Georgia Tech researchers will partner with Emory University, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, Hamilton Health Care System, Tufts University, Iowa State University, and Narf Industries. 

Georgia Tech faculty working on the project are:

• Associate Professor Brendan Saltaformaggio
• Regents’ Professor Wenke Lee
• Professor Taesoo Kim
• Professor Fabian Monrose
• Assistant Professor Frank Li
• Associate Professor Saman Zonouz
• Associate Professor Daniel Genkin
• Research Professor Sukarno Mertoguno
• Senior Research Scientist Trevor Lewis  

The wearable device measures and records important clinical parameters such as heart rate, respiration rate, temperature, electrocardiograms, and blood oxygen saturation. Speedy detection of abnormal readings in resource-challenged neonatal units could significantly reduce newborn mortality rates.

The device’s pilot study, conducted at Tikur Anbessa Specialized Hospital (TASH) in Addis Ababa, in collaboration with Abebaw Fekadu, Ph.D., from the Centre for Innovative Drug Development and Therapeutic Trials for Africa (CDT Africa Inc.), and neonatologist Asrat Demtse, M.D., from the TASH department of pediatrics, demonstrated a significant improvement over current vital sign monitoring and recording methods by providing continuous oversight using less medical equipment while also reducing handwritten paper tracking. Vital signs are a group of the most crucial medical data that indicate the status of the body's life-sustaining functions. The pairing of this wearable system with a smartphone app automated the monitoring process and delivered a superior level of neonatal care compared to the current processes at Ethiopia’s best hospital. 

Medical staff and parents also observed a reduced need to wake their babies when using the wearable monitoring system. In addition, after participating in the study, 84% of Ethiopian parents said they would use the device at home.

“Professor Hong Yeo and I connected immediately after he gave a brief research talk about a new, wearable cardiac monitor for children,” said Rudy Gleason. “I asked him if we could co-develop a wearable device for newborn babies in Ethiopia that measured not one, but a variety of vital signs. We both thought it was a great idea.”

Yeo and Gleason are faculty members in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech. And both are affiliated with Georgia Tech’s Institute for People and Technology, which seeks to improve global health.

In 2009, Gleason and his wife were in the process of adopting a baby from Ethiopia named Kennedy. Before they could bring her home, however, she died — the result, Gleason said, of a seemingly preventable combination of malnutrition and diarrhea.

“This loss redirected my academic teaching, research, and service activities at Georgia Tech,” said Gleason. “Since then, I’ve spent most of my career focused on developing resource-appropriate biomedical devices to reduce maternal and child mortality.”

“When we started this latest study, Ethiopian parents were reluctant to participate. But once we recruited a few mothers in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), everyone in the NICU community wanted their child to participate in our wearable health monitoring system.”

According to Yeo, “We designed the wearable patch as a safe, clinical-grade solution with minimal skin irritation. Its key design advantage lies in the use of nanomembranes, which allows the device to be soft and highly conformal to the baby's skin. Wearing the device helps to ensure critical events are not missed since the built-in automation acts as a force multiplier, freeing clinical staff to focus more on complex decision-making rather than manual data acquisition.”

“Rudy has a deep love for the people of Ethiopia. I feel fortunate to have met him as we embark on this project aimed at helping sick babies in the country. Without his support, I could not envision bringing this technology to Ethiopia,” said Yeo.

During the past decade, child mortality rates have decreased in Ethiopia, but newborn deaths have remained mostly unchanged. Both Yeo and Gleason feel their new wearable neonatal device could significantly lower mortality rates for newborns in Ethiopia as they advance this research. 

Citation: Zhou, L., Joseph, M., Lee, Y.J. et al. Soft, all-in-one, nanomembrane wearable system for advancing neonatal health monitoring in Ethiopia. npj Digit. Med. 8, 575 (2025).

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41746-025-01974-8

Funding: Gates Foundation (INV-006189) and the National Institutes of Health (R01HD100635). This work was also supported by the Imlay Foundation—Innovation Fund.

The winning team members were Taiga Cogger, Ryuichiro Go, Kokoro Cogger, and Taiyo Mitsuoka. The team won $2,000 dollars. The team’s faculty sponsor was Kiichiro DeLuca, a faculty member at Waseda University and partner at WERU Investment, a global early-stage venture capital firm based in Tokyo.

As the winner, the Revive & Survive student team is also invited to be part of Georgia Tech’s Create-X startup launch in summer 2026 as well as Georgia Tech’s Demo Day, August 2026, in Atlanta. Some travel support for the Atlanta trip will be provided.

Revive & Survive’s project empowers communities through regional revitalization and disaster preparedness for a more resilient and sustainable future.

CIC is a competition recognizing student innovation and entrepreneurship responding to today’s global challenges and opportunities. Founded in 2007 in Atlanta, Georgia, CIC is organized by IPaT at the Georgia Institute of Technology. 

For the 2025-2026 final pitches and award ceremony, the competition landed in Kaula Lampur, Malaysia. The competition focused on student teams from China, India, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. Each year, organizers and participants forge new partnerships and foster more collaborations across the Asian continent. IPaT’s CIC Asia Faculty Fellows help cultivate those team projects and the students showcase their innovative ideas during the competition.

“The CIC students, the support of the faculty fellows, the final competition presentations, and the invited industry forum combine to create a special and unique event,” said IPaT executive director Michael Best. “All of the student finalist projects represented the very best in people-centered technologies responding to global challenges.”

CIC Asia is distinct in how it brings teams from multiple countries together to interact and network. Most innovation competitions are single university or country.

The four runner-up finalist teams each received $1,000 dollars in prize money. The CIC Asia runner-up team projects and team members are listed below:

• ChiliCare is an IoT and AI farming app with auto watering, pest detection, microclimate insights, crop plotting, and smart fertilizer guidance. Team Members: Muhammad Haizad bin Murad, Hafiy Azfar bin Mohd Masri, Hazriq Haykal Norrol Farhan, Muhammad Naim bin Mazni. Faculty Fellow: Dr. Masrah Azrifah Azmi Murad. Mentor: Dr. Azrina binti Kamaruddin. University: Universiti Putra Malaysia.
   
• PlaySpot makes booking sports facilities in the Philippines simple, and accessible for everyone. Team Members: Louie Gee G. Cabagay, Alwin Matthew T. Chiong, Daniel Justine R. Jadman, Raphael Luis T. Malolos. Faculty Fellow: Mr. Paulo Luis T. Lozano. University: De La Salle University (The Philippines).
   
• CityFix is a mobile and web platform enabling citizens to quickly report and track municipal issues with GPS, photos, and real-time updates. Team Member: Ng Jia Hong. Faculty Fellow: Ms. Putri Syaidatul Akma Binti Mohd Azmi. University: Multimedia University (Malaysia).
   
• Flow Vending Machine proposed having vending machines which dispense biodegradable pads installed around campus toilets to help women to have easy access to sanitary pads. Team Members: Ava Jeslina binti Mohd Jamil, Abigail Siew Kar Yan, Ashley Shakyna, Geneve Tsen Fan Qin. Faculty Fellow: Ms. Putri Syaidatul Akma, J.D. Mentor: Ms. Raja Razana Bt Raja Razali. University: Multimedia University (Malaysia).
   

Future Tech Forum

The CIC event took place alongside the Future Tech Forum which was also organized by IPaT. The forum focused on innovations, opportunities, and advancements associated with human-centered AI, sustainable data centers, and digital trust and security. Expert panels and speakers from across Asia and Georgia Tech discussed the state of art in a rapidly changing world, with particular attention to what it means for Asian nations. The event was invitation only and limited to 150 attendees of established leaders and emerging innovators.

Participating technology speakers and panelists included:

• Honorable YB Tuan Gobind Singh Deo, Minister, Ministry of Digital, Malaysia
• Chee Mun Foong, CEO, YTL AI Labs; and CPO, Ryt Bank
• Chen Change Loy, President's Chair Professor, CCDS, NTU; Director, MMLab@NTU; and Co-Associate Director, S-Lab
• John Lim Ji Xiong, Chief Digital Officer, GAMUDA
• Henry Yang, CMO, Manus
• Ding Wang, Senior Researcher, Responsible AI, Google Research
• Benjamin Croc, CEO, BrioHR
• Tzu Kit Chan, Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), Risks and Safety Advisor of Top Universities in the USA, Singapore, Canada, and France
• Hari Krishnan, Co-founder and CEO of Genie Health
• Benoit Dubeau, Energy Strategy Manager, APAC, Amazon Web Services (AWS)
• Cindy Lin, Professor, School of Interactive Computing, Georgia Tech
• Ko Chuan Zhen, Group CEO & Co-Founder, Plus Xnergy, and Executive Director, BM Greentech
• Zachary Loh, Market Development Manager, Hydroleap
• Nge Foong Kheng, Engineering Manager, APAC, Global Switch
• Verghese Jacob, SVP Technology, DayOne

A photo album of the CIC and Future Tech Forum events can be viewed here.
 

###

The project began when Clint Zeagler, principal research scientist and IPaT’s director of strategic partnerships, invited Ellisor to “think big” and imagine how technology could amplify his artistic vision. “This was definitely a moment for me to step out of my comfort zone and to think on a bigger scale,” said Ellisor. “Coming from a poor artist background, we’re always just struggling to make anything. This was an opportunity to dream.”

“Artist residencies within Georgia Tech’s research centers and interdisciplinary research institutes help to drive innovation in our research enterprise, to discover new applications of our research within the arts, to build strong connections with community partners, and — most important of all — to create impactful new works of art,” said Jason Freeman, associate vice provost for the arts at Georgia Tech. “IPaT has long been at the forefront of GT’s initiatives to collaborate with Atlanta-area artists. I am thrilled to see the success of this latest collaboration between Clint Zeagler and Corian Ellisor.”

Ellisor, an Atlanta-based performance artist with a focus on dance theater, was selected as the IPaT’s  2025 artist-in-residence. Ellisor has worked with arts communities locally and internationally including Georgia, Texas, Florida, Massachusetts, Washington DC, New York, Guatemala, Sweden, The Netherlands, Germany and The United Kingdom. He was awarded the choreography award at the University of Houston, The Walthall Fellowship through WonderRoot, “Top 20 people to watch in 2013" by Atlanta’s Creative loafing, an Atlanta Beltline Grant in 2014, an artist in residency award with the Lucky Penny in 2015, and the Best Choreography Award at the Houston Fringe Festival in 2019.

World Building Meets Performance Art
Ellisor’s concept centered on world building, a technique often used in gaming but adapted here for live performance. The goal was to create an immersive environment where audiences could interact and react, while maintaining an uplifting aesthetic. “I wanted something that leaves the audience feeling good—something hopeful,” Ellisor explained. To develop the project, Ellisor and Zeagler hosted workshops with Georgia Tech students and community members, encouraging free-form creation and dialogue around the question: How do people find joy and peace in a chaotic world? Three teams of Georgia Tech undergraduate students were assigned to collaborate with Ellisor and make an avatar of him. The first team was assigned to reproduce Ellisor’s voice. The second team was assigned to generate a visual likeness of Ellisor. The third team worked on the outside aesthetics of a story booth.

The Story Booth: Technology Meets Emotion
A highlight of the residency was the Story Booth, a tech-enabled installation designed to collect personal narratives about joy and solace. Outfitted with full-body scans and voice capture, the booth featured a digital representation of Ellisor and used sentiment analysis to translate stories into color projections. “If someone shared something happy, the booth glowed orange; if it was sentimental, it turned blue,” Ellisor noted. These dynamic visuals illuminated both the booth and its surroundings, creating a striking display of emotion through light.

An Hour of Galleries Time
The residency culminated in “An Hour of Galleries Time,” an event combining video installations, interactive storytelling, and live dance performances. Dancers engaged with projected visuals before joining together for a collective performance against a massive, illuminated backdrop—transforming the space into a living canvas of movement and light. The interactive performance was held November 23 at the Goat Farm Arts Center, a visual and performing arts center housed in a 19th-century complex of industrial buildings in west midtown Atlanta.

Reflections on Collaboration
Ellisor described the experience as transformative, “I am very happy to have met this community of technologists that I would have never met because our worlds just do not cross at all. Another enlightening experience was trusting myself and trusting the vision—and then letting other people do what they’re supposed to do. Usually as an artist, we are sort of a solo factory. But having the trust in other people to make your vision happen—and it happening—was a really lovely experience.” He added, “I am very grateful to have gone through this with Georgia Tech. There are some tech folks there that were very happy about the final product, which makes me happy.”

“Research in lanthanides has already yielded significant dividends for society in terms of technological development,” La Pierre added.
    
The researchers hope to discover new tools for mining critical REEs, including improving lanthanide separation and recycling processes. When mining these elements, lanthanide elements are frequently mixed together. The separation process is painstaking and inefficient, generating a significant amount of waste. But with increasing global demand for REEs, the U.S. faces a supply issue. Figuring out how to improve lanthanides separation, potentially through oxidation chemistry, will ultimately enhance the supply of these critical elements. 

— Anne Wainscott-Sargent
 
Funding: This research was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy. 
 

Following a nationwide search, Georgia Tech President Ángel Cabrera has named Timothy Lieuwen the Executive Vice President for Research (EVPR). Lieuwen has served as interim EVPR since September 10, 2024. 

“As interim executive director, Beril has built the BBISS community, broadened its scope, and developed new programming to grow cross-disciplinary collaboration, community-engaged research, and entrepreneurship,” Kubanek said. “Faculty and students from the liberal arts, social sciences, design, business, computing, and fundamental science are engaging with BBISS in greater numbers, complementing our engineering community’s involvement. These are areas of strength at Georgia Tech that will help amplify the impact of BBISS.”

Toktay is professor of operations management, the Brady Family Chair, and Regents' Professor at the Scheller College of Business. She is an internationally recognized sustainable operations management scholar whose work has been recognized with multiple best paper awards. She is a Distinguished Fellow of the INFORMS Manufacturing & Service Operations Management (MSOM)Society. Through initiatives such as the Drawdown Georgia Business Compact, she has helped translate research insights into actionable business initiatives while fostering regional economic development.

Her academic leadership includes serving as department co-editor for “Health, Environment, and Society” for MSOM, area editor for “Environment, Energy, and Sustainability” at Operations Research, and special issue co-editor on “Business and Climate Change” for Management Science, as well as “Environment” for MSOM. She serves on the board of the Alliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability and the board of directors of the New York Climate Exchange.

Toktay has been instrumental in advancing sustainability at Georgia Tech, serving as founding faculty director of the Ray C. Anderson Center for Sustainable Business, co-architect of the Serve-Learn-Sustain initiative, and co-chair of the Sustainability Next Institute Strategic Plan Implementation Task Force. Her commitment to Ph.D. student success earned her the 2018 Georgia Tech Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Advisor Award. She also co-developed the Carbon Reduction Challenge, an award-winning interdisciplinary, co-curricular program that engages undergraduate students in climate intrapreneurship.

Toktay holds a Ph.D. in operations research from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an M.S. in industrial engineering from Purdue University, and a B.S. in industrial engineering and mathematics from Boğaziçi University. She joined Georgia Tech in 2005 after serving as faculty at INSEAD business school in Fontainebleau, France.

Since assuming the interim role, Toktay has significantly strengthened BBISS by expanding the faculty leadership team, securing additional funding, establishing seed grant programs that have benefited over 100 researchers across all Colleges, and transforming the Center for Serve-Learn-Sustain into the Center for Sustainable Communities Research and Education.

"Energy and sustainability continue to be top Georgia Tech research priorities, for which we will need new funding strategies," said Tim Lieuwen, executive vice president for Research. "Philanthropy and business partnerships will grow in importance in the coming years. Beril has considerable experience and vision for maximizing these partnerships, which will serve BBISS and the Institute well into the future."

The Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems is one of Georgia Tech’s interdisciplinary research institutes. The vision of BBISS is to grow and mobilize Georgia Tech’s knowledge assets — people and research — to create a sustainable future for all. BBISS is a key partner in the implementation of Georgia Tech’s Sustainability Next 2023-2030 Strategic Plan, a consensus road map to advance Georgia Tech’s vision to address the biggest local, national, and global challenges of our time. BBISS relentlessly serves the public good, catalyzes high-impact research, develops exceptional leaders, and cultivates partnerships that translate knowledge into practice.

"I'm honored to lead BBISS and build on the momentum we've created to date,” Toktay said. “Our vision is to maximize the collective impact of Georgia Tech's remarkable sustainability research community across all colleges and disciplines. By catalyzing collaborative research and connecting our faculty with key external partners and communities, we are positioning Georgia Tech to be a global thought leader in sustainability and to drive meaningful solutions to some of our most pressing environmental and social challenges."

The campus community is invited to a reception celebrating Toktay's appointment on Thursday, May 1, 2025, at 4:30 p.m. at the Collective Food Hall in the Coda building. Contact Susan Ryan for details.

They could burn low-sulfur fossil fuels, like marine gas oil, or install cleaning systems to remove sulfur from the exhaust gas produced by burning heavy fuel oil. Biofuels with lower sulfur content offer another alternative, though their limited availability makes them a less feasible option.

While installing exhaust gas cleaning systems, known as scrubbers, is the most feasible and cost-effective option, there has been a great deal of uncertainty among firms, policymakers, and scientists as to how “green” these scrubbers are.

Through a novel lifecycle assessment, researchers from MIT, Georgia Tech, and elsewhere have now found that burning heavy fuel oil with scrubbers in the open ocean can match or surpass using low-sulfur fuels, when a wide variety of environmental factors is considered.

The scientists combined data on the production and operation of scrubbers and fuels with emissions measurements taken onboard an oceangoing cargo ship.

They found that, when the entire supply chain is considered, burning heavy fuel oil with scrubbers was the least harmful option in terms of nearly all 10 environmental impact factors they studied, such as greenhouse gas emissions, terrestrial acidification, and ozone formation.

“In our collaboration with Oldendorff Carriers to broadly explore reducing the environmental impact of shipping, this study of scrubbers turned out to be an unexpectedly deep and important transitional issue,” says Neil Gershenfeld, an MIT professor, director of the Center for Bits and Atoms (CBA), and senior author of the study.

“Claims about environmental hazards and policies to mitigate them should be backed by science. You need to see the data, be objective, and design studies that take into account the full picture to be able to compare different options from an apples-to-apples perspective,” adds lead author Patricia Stathatou, an assistant professor at Georgia Tech's School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, who began this study as a postdoc in the CBA.

Stathatou is joined on the paper by Michael Triantafyllou and others at the National Technical University of Athens in Greece and the maritime shipping firm Oldendorff Carriers. The research appears today in Environmental Science and Technology.

Slashing sulfur emissions

Heavy fuel oil, traditionally burned by bulk carriers that make up about 30 percent of the global maritime fleet, usually has a sulfur content around 2 to 3 percent. This is far higher than the International Maritime Organization’s 2020 cap of 0.5 percent in most areas of the ocean and 0.1 percent in areas near population centers or environmentally sensitive regions.

Sulfur oxide emissions contribute to air pollution and acid rain, and can damage the human respiratory system.

In 2018, fewer than 1,000 vessels employed scrubbers. After the cap went into place, higher prices of low-sulfur fossil fuels and limited availability of alternative fuels led many firms to install scrubbers so they could keep burning heavy fuel oil.

Today, more than 5,800 vessels utilize scrubbers, the majority of which are wet, open-loop scrubbers.

“Scrubbers are a very mature technology. They have traditionally been used for decades in land-based applications like power plants to remove pollutants,” Stathatou says.

A wet, open-loop marine scrubber is a huge, metal, vertical tank installed in a ship’s exhaust stack, above the engines. Inside, seawater drawn from the ocean is sprayed through a series of nozzles downward to wash the hot exhaust gases as they exit the engines.

The seawater interacts with sulfur dioxide in the exhaust, converting it to sulfates — water-soluble, environmentally benign compounds that naturally occur in seawater. The washwater is released back into the ocean, while the cleaned exhaust escapes to the atmosphere with little to no sulfur dioxide emissions.

But the acidic washwater can contain other combustion byproducts like heavy metals, so scientists wondered if scrubbers were comparable, from a holistic environmental point of view, to burning low-sulfur fuels.

Several studies explored toxicity of washwater and fuel system pollution, but none painted a full picture.

The researchers set out to fill that scientific gap.

A “well-to-wake” analysis

The team conducted a lifecycle assessment using a global environmental database on production and transport of fossil fuels, such as heavy fuel oil, marine gas oil, and very-low sulfur fuel oil. Considering the entire lifecycle of each fuel is key, since producing low-sulfur fuel requires extra processing steps in the refinery, causing additional emissions of greenhouse gases and particulate matter.

“If we just look at everything that happens before the fuel is bunkered onboard the vessel, heavy fuel oil is significantly more low-impact, environmentally, than low-sulfur fuels,” she says.

The researchers also collaborated with a scrubber manufacturer to obtain detailed information on all materials, production processes, and transportation steps involved in marine scrubber fabrication and installation.

“If you consider that the scrubber has a lifetime of about 20 years, the environmental impacts of producing the scrubber over its lifetime are negligible compared to producing heavy fuel oil,” she adds.

For the final piece, Stathatou spent a week onboard a bulk carrier vessel in China to measure emissions and gather seawater and washwater samples. The ship burned heavy fuel oil with a scrubber and low-sulfur fuels under similar ocean conditions and engine settings.

Collecting these onboard data was the most challenging part of the study.

“All the safety gear, combined with the heat and the noise from the engines on a moving ship, was very overwhelming,” she says.

Their results showed that scrubbers reduce sulfur dioxide emissions by 97 percent, putting heavy fuel oil on par with low-sulfur fuels according to that measure. The researchers saw similar trends for emissions of other pollutants like carbon monoxide and nitrous oxide.

In addition, they tested washwater samples for more than 60 chemical parameters, including nitrogen, phosphorus, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and 23 metals.

The concentrations of chemicals regulated by the IMO were far below the organization’s requirements. For unregulated chemicals, the researchers compared the concentrations to the strictest limits for industrial effluents from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and European Union.

Most chemical concentrations were at least an order of magnitude below these requirements.

In addition, since washwater is diluted thousands of times as it is dispersed by a moving vessel, the concentrations of such chemicals would be even lower in the open ocean.

These findings suggest that the use of scrubbers with heavy fuel oil can be considered as equal to or more environmentally friendly than low-sulfur fuels across many of the impact categories the researchers studied.

“This study demonstrates the scientific complexity of the waste stream of scrubbers. Having finally conducted a multiyear, comprehensive, and peer-reviewed study, commonly held fears and assumptions are now put to rest,” says Scott Bergeron, managing director at Oldendorff Carriers and co-author of the study.

“This first-of-its-kind study on a well-to-wake basis provides very valuable input to ongoing discussion at the IMO,” adds Thomas Klenum, executive vice president of innovation and regulatory affairs at the Liberian Registry, emphasizing the need “for regulatory decisions to be made based on scientific studies providing factual data and conclusions.”

Ultimately, this study shows the importance of incorporating lifecycle assessments into future environmental impact reduction policies, Stathatou says.

“There is all this discussion about switching to alternative fuels in the future, but how green are these fuels? We must do our due diligence to compare them equally with existing solutions to see the costs and benefits,” she adds.

This study was supported, in part, by Oldendorff Carriers.

- Written by Adam Zewe, MIT News Office

These materials are the tiny building blocks powering modern life. From lithium, cobalt, nickel and graphite in batteries to gallium in telecommunication systems that enable constant connectivity, critical minerals act as the essential vitamins of modern technology: small in volume but vital to function.

Yet the U.S. depends heavily on imports for most critical materials. In 2024 the U.S. imported 80% of rare earth elements it used, 100% of gallium and natural graphite, and 48% to 76% of lithium, nickel and cobalt, to name a few.

Read more »

The Blavatnik Awards are presented by the Blavatnik Family Foundation and are administered by the New York Academy of Sciences. They honor the most promising early-career researchers in the U.S., across life sciences, chemistry, and physical sciences, and engineering. The awards are among the most prestigious and competitive in science.  

This dual recognition underscores Georgia Tech’s growing national leadership in high-impact, interdisciplinary research. 

Ryan Lively, Thomas C. DeLoach Jr. Endowed Professor in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, is recognized in the Chemical Sciences category for pioneering scalable technologies that will reduce industrial carbon emissions and energy use. He develops new materials that can capture carbon and separate chemicals, using much less energy than conventional methods. His innovations could make industry cleaner and play a key role in addressing climate change. 

Matthew McDowell, Carter N. Paden Jr. Distinguished Chair in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering holds a joint appointment in the School of Materials Science and Engineering. Recognized in the Physical Sciences and Engineering category for groundbreaking battery research, he and his team develop new materials to make batteries last longer and store more energy. He has discovered ways to visualize how battery materials change during use — insights that help improve the performance and safety of future energy technologies. 
 
This year’s 18 finalists were selected from 310 nominees. On Oct. 7, 2025, three laureates will be announced at a gala at New York City’s American Museum of Natural History. Each laureate will receive $250,000, the largest unrestricted scientific prize for early-career researchers in the U.S.  

The seed grant program, administered by the Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems (BBISS), reaches many faculty members from a diverse array of disciplines due to the generous support provided by broad-based partnerships in addition to the Sustainability Next funds. This year’s partners are the Georgia Tech Arts Initiative, BBISS, Walter H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, College of Design, School of City and Regional Planning, School of Computer Science, Ray C. Anderson Center for Sustainable Business, Energy Policy and Innovation Center, Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience, Institute for Matter and Systems, Institute for People and Technology, Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines, Strategic Energy Institute, and Center for Sustainable Communities Research and Education.

The goal of the program is to nurture promising research areas for future large-scale collaborative sustainability research, research translation, and/or high-impact outreach; to provide mid-career faculty with leadership and community-building opportunities; and to broaden and strengthen the Georgia Tech sustainability community as a whole. The call for proposals was modeled after the Office of the Executive Vice President for Research’s Moving Teams Forward and Forming Teams programs.

Looking ahead, BBISS will support and nurture these projects in collaboration with the relevant funding partners. Beginning in October, BBISS will host a series of focused workshops designed to foster collaboration and provide additional support to help advance these initiatives. Projects have been grouped into five thematic clusters, each of which will be the focus of an upcoming workshop:

• Circularity Programs
• Adaptation to the Changing Environment
• Community Engagement and Education
• Climate Science and Solutions
• Environmental and Health Impacts

BBISS faculty fellows, past seed grant recipients, and other interested Georgia Tech faculty are invited to participate. If you are interested in participating in the workshops, please email kristin.janacek@gatech.edu. The first session on Circularity Programs is Oct. 16 at 1 p.m. in the Peachtree Room (3rd floor) of the John Lewis Student Center.

The 2025 Sustainability Next Seed Grant awards are:

Forming Teams:

• Developing a Sustainable and Ethical Electric Vehicle Ecosystem Workforce for the Future Through Cross-Sector Partnerships. Principal Investigators (PI): Joe Bozeman. Co-Principal Investigator (Co-PI): Jennifer Hirsch.
• Unlocking Circularity at Scale: Platform-Based Solutions for Advancing Material Reuse and Supply Chain Resilience. Principal Investigator: Marco Ceccagnoli. Co-PIs: Matthew Realff, Patricia Stathatou, Christos Athanasiou.
• OpenGUARD: Geospatial Utility Aggregations with Robust Differential Privacy. PI: Patrick Kastner. Co-PI: Juba Ziani.
• Regenerative Framework: A Transdisciplinary Model for Urban Climate Resilience and Soil Health. PI: Jenny McGuire. Co-PI: Nicole Kennard.
• Guiding Transportation With Community Action Through Research, Education, and Service (GT-CARES). PI: Rounaq Basu. Co-PIs: Ruthie Yow,  Sofía Pérez-Guzmán, Rebecca Watts Hull.
• Co-optimizing Design and Coordination for Sustainable Multi-Robot Construction. PI: Edvard Bruun. Co-PI: Harish Ravichanda.
• Campus as Material Ecology: Building Transdisciplinary Circular Systems for Plastic Tracking, Transformation, and Community Engagement. PI: Hyojin Kwon. Co-PIs: Michael Best, Russ Clark, Tim Trent, Meisha Shofner.
• Sonifying Climate Infrastructures: Community Outreach and Education With Shade Synthesizer. PI: Heidi Biggs. Co-PIs: Clint Zeagler, Alexandria Smith.
• Building a Georgia Tech Research Partnership for Community-Based Food System Resilience. PI: Johannes Milz. Co-PIs: Xin Chen, Inge Rocker,  Sofía Pérez-Guzmán, Nicole Kennard.

Moving Teams Forward:

• Are Data Centers the New Landfills? Social, Economic, and Environmental Tradeoffs. PI: Allen Hyde. Co-PIs: Josiah Hester, Cindy Lin, Nicole Kennard, Joe Bozeman, Elora Raymond, Tony Harding, Jung-Ho Lewe.
• Game-Based Learning in Energy Systems: A Rigorous Evaluation of Current Crisis. PI: Jessica Roberts. Co-PI: Daniel Molzahn.
• Strategic Application of Antibiotic-Independent Therapy to Treat Coral Disease Outbreaks. PI: Lauren Speare.
• Advancing Water Reuse Through Research, Education, and Community Partnerships in Atlanta, Georgia. PI: Katherine Graham. Co-PIs: Amanda Nolen, Yeqing Kong.
• Assessing the Accuracy and Reliability of Low-Cost Particulate Matter (PM) Sensors Across Diverse Ambient Environments. PI: Nga Lee (Sally) Ng. Co-PI: Ted Russell.
• Developing a Georgia Community Center Into a Sustainability Hub. PI: Ashutosh Dhekne, Co-PIs: Umakishore Ramachandran, Danielle Willkens, Ruthie Yow.
• What, When, Where of Air Pollution: PM2.5 and How It Impacts Health. PI: Shuichi Takayama. Co-PI: Nga Lee (Sally) Ng.
• Enabling Communities to Baseline the Performance of Energy Systems. PI: Jung-Ho Lewe. Co-PIs: Scott Duncan, David Solano Sarmiento, Danielle Willkens, Anna Tinoco-Santiago.

This round of funding was highly competitive, with 45 proposals submitted. BBISS extends its gratitude to all the individuals and groups who applied, as well as to the faculty and staff who contributed their time and expertise to evaluate the proposals. Their thoughtful input was essential to achieving a fair and collaborative selection process, ensuring that the awarded proposals align strongly with the BBISS’ strategy and show promise for long-term impact and future research opportunities.

According to BBISS Executive Director Beril Toktay, and Brady Family Chair in Management, “The high level of participation demonstrates the enduring commitment to sustainability research and engagement by the Georgia Tech community. BBISS honors this commitment by looking for collaboration opportunities with all who are driving sustainability efforts at Georgia Tech.”

Workshops hosted by the Robert C. Williams Museum of Papermaking and led by Georgia Tech Assistant Professor HyunJoo Oh will introduce about 60 students from Atlanta Public Schools to paper-based electronics through hands-on workshops.

The Williams Museum will open an exhibit titled “The Future of Paper” that displays designs created in the workshop alongside visionary examples of paper-based technologies from Georgia Tech researchers.

The exhibit, funded by the National Science Foundation, is slated to open to the public in 2027.

Oh is a researcher with joint appointments in the School of Interactive Computing and the School of Industrial Design.She leads the Computational Design and Craft (CoDe Craft) Group at Georgia Tech, where her team integrates everyday craft materials with computing to support creative exploration.

Oh believes paper could be widely used to support prototyping printed circuit boards (PCBs) as a sustainable alternative to silicon. While silicon is the most prominent material used by technology companies to build computer chips, it isn’t biodegradable. And it can be harmful to the environment and contribute to e-waste. 

Paper, however, provides an eco-friendly platform for printing conductive traces and mounting small electronic components. With the expansion of printed electronic tools and techniques, paper and similar materials have become more popular among technologists who develop sensing technologies and wearable devices.

“It’s widely available and accessible,” Oh said. “I can’t think of anything more affordable and approachable that young makers and the broader maker community can use for circuits than paper.

“Printed electronics traditionally required expensive equipment, but with recent innovation in materials science, conductive materials such as conductive pens and paint available in local arts and crafts stores can be used to build circuits on paper. We can also print circuits using a regular office inkjet printer with silver ink.”

Shared Vision

Shortly after arriving at Georgia Tech in 2019, Oh knew she had to develop a project that would let her partner with the Williams Museum. 

“I was captivated by the museum’s space and its celebration of paper,” she said. “I wanted a collaboration that would integrate technology in a way that complemented and respected the museum’s existing beauty.”

Museum director Virginia Howell said the project was a perfect match for the museum, which has documented the history of papermaking since it was founded in 1939 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Georgia Tech became the new home of the museum in 2003.

With more than 100,000 objects in its collection — some dating back as far as 2,000 years ago — the museum is unique, Howell said. Most papermaking museums are typically located at an historic mill, but the Williams Museum covers the history of papermaking.

Howell said that before she met Oh, she had been looking for an exhibit that would display the possible future of papermaking.

“We do the past of paper fantastically well, and we do the present of paper well through our changing exhibitions,” Howell said. “The future of paper is something we haven’t spent a lot of time interpreting.”

Crafting the Future

Oh and Howell agree that young people will shape that future. Oh said paper is commonly linked to art in the education sphere. As the material’s use in technology increases, however, it can funnel the interests of students toward engineering and computing. 

Incorporating paper and craft materials can invite more students to explore engineering and computing concepts. After all, a circuit board created on paper isn’t so different from one built on a silicon PCB, Oh said.

“This approach can excite the kind of students who usually feel disconnected from electronics and computing,” she said. “It gives those who only see themselves as creative or artistic a way to enjoy technology and resonate with it.

“Usually when I work with young students, especially girls, if I start with something technical, their interest wanes. But when I present those same ideas through art using familiar materials like paper, they become more engaged and confident. That’s when they start to flourish.”

Oh and Howell will hold three rounds of 10-week workshops for the students — spring 2026, fall 2026, and spring 2027. The best designs from those workshops will be displayed in the exhibit.

“They’ll feel more comfortable with computing and engineering as an introductory experience,” Howell said. “When they successfully build on it and realize they did this on a sheet of paper, it’s exciting to think what they’ll do when they get more sophisticated tools and access.”

To ease this environmental burden, industry has worked to adopt renewable biopolymers in place of traditional plastics. However, developers of sustainable packaging have faced hurdles in blocking out moisture and oxygen, a barrier critical for protecting food, pharmaceuticals, and sensitive electronics.

Now, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a biologically based film made from natural ingredients found in plants, mushrooms, and food waste that can block moisture and oxygen as effectively as conventional plastics. Their findings were recently published in ACS Applied Polymer Materials.

“We’re using materials that are already abundant in and degrade in nature to produce packaging that won’t pollute the environment for hundreds or even thousands of years,” said Carson Meredith, a professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (ChBE@GT) and executive director of the Renewable Bioproducts Institute. “Our films, composed of biodegradable components, rival or exceed the performance of conventional plastics in keeping food fresh and safe.”

Meredith’s research team has worked for more than a decade to develop environmentally friendly oxygen and water barriers for packaging. While earlier research using biopolymers showed promise, high humidity continued to weaken the barrier properties.

However, Meredith and his collaborators found a fix using a blend of these natural ingredients: cellulose (which gives plants their structure), chitosan (derived from crustacean-based food waste or mushrooms), and citric acid (from citrus fruits).

“By crosslinking these materials and adding a heat treatment, we created a thin film that reduced both moisture and oxygen transmission, even in hot, humid conditions simulating the tropics,” said lead author Yang Lu, a former postdoctoral researcher in ChBE@GT.

The barrier technology developed by the researchers consists of three primary components: a carbohydrate polymer for structure, a plasticizer to maintain flexibility, and a water-repelling additive to resist moisture. When cast into thin films, these ingredients self-organize at the molecular level to form a dense, ordered structure that resists swelling or softening under high humidity.

Even at 80 percent relative humidity, the films showed extremely low oxygen permeability and water vapor transmission, matching or outperforming common plastics such as poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) and poly(ethylene vinyl alcohol) (EVOH).

“Our approach creates barriers that are not only renewable, but also mechanically robust, offering a promising alternative to conventional plastics in packaging applications,” said Natalie Stingelin, professor and chair of Georgia Tech’s School of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) and a professor in ChBE@GT.

The research team has filed for patent protection for the technology (patent pending). The research was supported by Mars Inc., Georgia Tech’s Renewable Bioproducts Institute, and the U.S. Department of Defense through the National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship Program. Eric Klingenberg, a co-author of the study, is an employee of Mars, a manufacturer of packaged foods.

Citation: Yang Lu, Javaz T. Rolle, Tanner Hickman, Yue Ji, Eric Klingenberg, Natalie Stingelin, and Carson Meredith, “Transforming renewable carbohydrate-based polymers into oxygen and moisture-barriers at elevated humidity,” ACS Applied Polymer Materials, 2025.

“Georgia Tech and UGA's collective commitment to advancing science and technology exceeds the intensity of our athletic rivalry,” Fedorov said. “Together, we’re advancing cell and therapy biomanufacturing to develop lifesaving treatments for the most devastating diseases.”
 
Georgia Tech’s Francisco Robles and UGA’s Lohitash Karumbaiah are using manufactured T cells to target cancer. Robles, who leads the Optical Imaging and Spectroscopy Lab in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, developed quantitative Oblique Back-illumination Microscopy (qOBM) to monitor tumor growth in real time. The method allows scientists to visualize patient-derived glioblastoma cell clusters generated in the Karumbaiah Lab, tracking tumor structure and behavior at various stages.

“Assessing therapeutic potency is often complex, costly, and ineffective for solid tumors,” Karumbaiah said. “qOBM simplifies the process by providing real-time, label-free monitoring of therapeutic efficacy against 3D solid tumors.”   

The work could help doctors personalize cancer treatments by providing early, detailed signs of whether a therapy is working.

“This technique is more compact and affordable and lets us watch T cells attack cell cultures in real time,” Robles said. “This breakthrough could transform how we study disease and screen new treatments.”

A Playbook for Local Healthcare
Created in 2007 by the National Institutes of Health, Georgia CTSA is one of several NIH-funded national partnerships advancing new health therapeutics and practices. Since 2017, it has comprised UGA, Georgia Tech, Emory, and the Morehouse School of Medicine. The alliance’s reach extends far beyond campus borders, bringing together researchers, clinicians, professional societies, and community and industry partners to identify local health challenges and translate research into practical solutions.

And out of this alliance have come many collaborative studies among CTSA’s members.

One, the Georgia Health Landscape Dashboard, is a tool to identify local health gaps and connect regional health professionals or policymakers with the researchers who can best address their community’s challenges. UGA College of Family and Consumer Sciences Associate Professors Alison Berg and Dee Warmath, along with community health engagement coordinator Courtney Still Brown, are working with Georgia Tech’s Jon Duke, director of the Center for Health Analytics and Informatics at the Georgia Tech Research Institute and a principal research scientist in the School of Interactive Computing.

The dashboard has already helped match researchers with communities by combining epidemiological data with “community voice” insights through surveys of residents and local leaders.

For example, when examining diabetes data, the dashboard indicates Randolph County has the state’s highest prevalence, despite declining by about 8% between 2021-24. Meanwhile, Treutlen County’s rate increased 29.2% during the same period. Perhaps Treutlen’s need for diabetic care is a growing concern, while Randolph’s is being addressed. And perhaps Hancock County, which ranks diabetes its top priority in the community voice category, is in search of immediate solutions.

“The Landscape Dashboard is a fantastic example of how the unique expertise found at Georgia Tech and UGA can be brought together to create something truly valuable for all Georgia,” Duke said. “By bringing together a range of data sources and health analytics approaches, this collaboration has created a tool that delivers novel insights into health, community, and policy across the state.”

Supported by UGA Cooperative Extension and the Biomedical and Translational Sciences Institute, the project leverages a network of agents in every county across the state. Warmath said the project’s strength lies in its ability to connect research with real-world needs.

“To build a community-responsive ecosystem for biomedical research, scientists must recognize local needs, share progress with communities to foster trust and acceptance, recruit clinicians and industry partners, and strengthen the relationships between patient and caregiver,” Warmath said.

Teaming Up for Maternal Health
Warmath and a team of researchers at UGA, Georgia Tech, and Emory are also collaborating on an NIH-funded project uniting experts in maternal health, biostatistics, and consumer science to explore how wearable technologies could improve delivery-room care.

During childbirth, clinicians monitor countless maternal and fetal vitals — contractions, heart rates, oxygen levels, kidney function, and more. What new insights, the researchers asked, could advanced wearable technologies offer in the delivery room, and what barriers might prevent their use?

Using nationwide surveys and focus groups, the team gathered information from a representative sample of pregnant, postpartum, and reproductive-age women, as well as healthcare professionals, to examine acceptance of wearable health technologies during labor and delivery. In their analysis of this rich data source, the team is identifying key variables that reveal gaps in technology acceptance and the unique needs of diverse maternal populations.

Each partner institution brings unique expertise. At Emory, principal investigator Suchitra Chandrasekaran contributes clinical insights from direct patient care. At UGA, Warmath applies her knowledge in consumer science to analyze end-user motivation, attitudes, and behaviors. At Georgia Tech, experts like Sarah Farmer in the Center for Advanced Communications Policy’s Home Lab facilitate large-scale data collection.

With data collection now complete, the team is analyzing results to inform future design and deployment of wearable technologies.
“Each school has a different perspective,” Farmer said. “It’s not as simple as one school does this but doesn’t do that. Each has their expertise, but they offer different perspectives and different resources that, when pooled, can make our research that much more effective.”

Whether advancing maternal health, mapping Georgia’s health needs, or engineering next-generation therapies, UGA and Georgia Tech continue to prove that collaboration is Georgia’s strongest tradition. Further, the undergraduate and graduate students who work in these labs and others represent the state’s highly skilled workforce of tomorrow.

“When our institutions work together, Georgia wins,” Warmath said.

— By David Mitchell

Modern warfare and the technology behind it are evolving. Around the world, the skies are increasingly filled with small, agile, and intelligent systems — drones, missiles, and interceptors that demand lightweight, affordable, and highly efficient propulsion. The future of defense is fast, adaptable, and precise — and Georgia is positioning itself at the center of that transformation. 

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