The North American hurricane season is, for many on the East Coast and Gulf Coast, six months of vigilance, and among the resources most likely to be consulted during this time are storm tracking maps. If you learn that your home might be in the path of a storm, you probably actively search for the most current version of one of these maps. Bruce Walker, a professor in the schools of Psychology and Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech, wants to ensure that storm-tracking maps and other emergency and environmental communication tools convey the most important information in the most understandable manner to the largest number of people possible. “Weather and climate affect every single person on Earth,” he said, “so no one can be left behind when it comes to these critical communications.”

Walker is director of the Center for Inclusive Climate Communication (CICC) at Georgia Tech. CICC is a new and growing consortium of researchers, organizations, agencies, and companies whose goal is to ensure that climate information of all types is widely accessible. The center is housed in the School of Psychology but has affiliated faculty from all around campus, and several universities around the U.S. CICC is expanding internationally as well, developing sub-networks in Europe, Africa, and Australia.

As part of its efforts, the CICC is working with the coastal city of Brunswick, Georgia. Situated about 65 miles northeast of Jacksonville, Florida, Brunswick is no stranger to hurricanes and tropical storms. The city is working to develop a comprehensive Community-Based Emergency Warning System, which will include maps and other emergency communications that ensure language, culture, level of education, or other differences in lived experience are not barriers to residents understanding critical safety information. This work is supported by the Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems (BBISS) and the Center for Sustainable Communities Research and Education (SCoRE) through the Sustainability Next Seed Grant Program.

Hurricane maps and related information can come from many sources. Government agencies, municipal emergency management agencies, media outlets, and meteorological organizations all may have their own versions, which vary in how they visually display data. The information used to generate the maps is collected and distributed to the public domain by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) every few hours. The maps that the public sees show the important information that one would expect, but they may not do so with an eye for how different people might interpret, or misinterpret, that info.

“Once we determine the best way to present hurricane data to the most people, we will work with content providers to standardize the way they generate these resources,” says Walker. “Reliable data and what we call inclusive communications lead to better decisions by the public.”

The CICC investigators’ process aspires to the philosophy of Universal Design, but since no design can be 100% universal, they refer to what they create as “inclusive designs.” Inclusive design means adapting to the diverse needs of the broadest possible audience. Since the language skills, education, lived experience, and physical ability of the person in the storm’s path can vary, these maps must present information in many alternative ways.

For those who can see the map, for example, improving the visual design (e.g., a better use of symbols and a clearer visual layout) can help. For those with vision impairment, adding audio layers (called “sonification”) to the map can help. For many people, simply comprehending a map can itself be a challenge. In that case, adding more explanations about how to interpret a map, what different terms mean, and what the storm is likely to do can make it more understandable.

All of these strategies provide multiple means of accessing, understanding, and acting on the data represented by the map. When studying how to design inclusive maps, soliciting input and suggestions from as many different potential users as possible helps the CICC team ensure that vital information is understandable and useful to the most people.

One of CICC’s primary goals is to take lessons from their research projects, such as the inclusive hurricane map, and derive general principles for the effective design of emergency communications tools of all types. While every disaster, from floods and wildfires to tsunamis, tornadoes, and ice storms, will require the distribution of unique pieces of data, the CICC researchers and their community partners are identifying design strategies that will make these communications understandable and actionable to everyone.

Walker and other CICC researchers engage students in this work. Isabella Martincic, a Ph.D. student in engineering psychology, shepherds many of the center’s research and design efforts, including AccessCORPS, a team that makes educational materials more inclusive and accessible. Jessica Herring and Ishan Vepa, students in the M.S. program in human-computer interaction, have led the hurricane map project, including overhauling existing maps from recent storms by applying CICC design guidelines to them. And undergraduate student Cal Price has been the lead researcher on the Brunswick collaboration, engaging with both community members and civic officials.

These efforts — adding more features, revamping existing maps, and consulting with weather experts and end users — demonstrate how seemingly simple changes can lead to significantly better interpretations of the data by the target audience. The research behind the inclusive hurricane maps will be presented at the 23rd International Web for All Conference, which takes place later this year.

CICC researchers are also engaging in partnerships with companies that see the potential benefits of this approach. Data visualization company Highcharts, for example, is a supporter and collaborator. Since their business models revolve around distributing such information, they have a keen interest in the lessons learned from CICC research. CICC does not regard its findings as intellectual property; they prefer that good design guidelines proliferate.

“Ultimately, our goal is for anyone to be able to look at a communication tool, quickly grasp critical pieces of information that may impact their lives and well-being, and take appropriate actions,” Walker said, “whether that be for the daily weather or for an impending natural disaster.”

To help find answers, researchers at the Institute for Neuroscience, Neurotechnology, and Society (INNS) are using math, data, and AI to unlock the secrets of thought. Together they are helping turn the brain’s raw electrical “noise” into real insights about how people think, move, and perceive the world.

Fair warning: Prepare your neurons for the complexity of this brain research ahead.

Building AI Like a Brain

What if artificial neurons in AI programs were arranged as they are in the brain?

AI programs would then help us understand why the brain is organized the way it is. This neuro-AI synthesis would also work faster, use less energy, and be easier to interpret. Creating such systems is the goal of Apurva Ratan Murty, an assistant professor of Psychology who is creating topographic AI models like the one above of three domains — vision, audition, and language inspired by the brain. In the near future, he predicts doctors might be able to use these patterns to predict the effects of brain lesions and other disorders. “We’re not there yet,” he says. “But our work brings us significantly closer to that future than ever before.”

Computing Thought and Movement

How cats walk keeps Chethan Pandarinath on his toes. This biomedical engineer uses sensors to analyze how two sets of feline leg muscles — flexors and extensors — are controlled by the spinal cord. Understanding how that happens could help patients partially paralyzed from spinal cord injuries, strokes, or progressive neuro-degenerative diseases get back on their feet again. “My lab is using AI tools that allow us to turn complex spinal cord activity data into something we can interpret. It tells us there’s a simple underlying structure behind the complex activity patterns,” says the associate professor.

Revealing the Brain’s Spike Patterns

“The brain is like a symphony conductor,” says Simon Sponberg. “Individual instruments have some independent control, but most of the music comes from the brain’s precise coordination of notes among the different players in the body.” This physics professor studies the fantastically fast-beating wings of the hummingbird-sized hawk moth (Manduca sexta). Its agile flight movement comes as a result of spikes in electrical activity in 10 muscles. Sponberg found something that surprised him — the brain focuses less on creating the number of spikes than in orchestrating their precise patterns over time. To Sponberg, every millisecond matters. “We are just beginning to understand how the nervous system first acquires precisely timed spiking patterns during development,” he says.

Predicting Decisions Through Statistics

Put a mouse in a maze with food far away, and it will learn to find it. But life for mice — and people — isn’t so simple. Sometimes they want to explore, only want water, or just want to go home. What’s more, animals make decisions based on their history, not just on how they feel at the moment. To dig deeper into the decision-making process, Anqi Wu, an assistant professor in the School of Computational Science and Engineering, is giving mice more options. By using a new computational framework called SWIRL (Switching Inverse Reinforcement Learning), her findings have outperformed models that fail to take historical behavior into account. “We’re seeking to understand not only animal behavior but also human behavior to gain insight into the human decision-making process over a long period of time,” she says.

Modeling the Mind’s Wiring With Math

Connectivity shapes cognition in the cerebral cortex, a layered structure in the brain. The visual cortex, in particular, processes visual data from the retina relayed through the Lateral Geniculate Nucleus (LGN) in the thalamus, and directs it to the correct cognitive domain in the brain. How it does this is the mystery that computational neuroscientist Hannah Choi wants to solve. “The big question I’m interested in is how network connectivity patterns in the architecture of the LGN are related to computations,” says this assistant math professor. To find answers, she shows mice repeated image patterns such as flower-cat-dog-house and then disrupts the pattern. The goal? To grasp how the thalamus’s nonlinear dynamical system works. If scientists and doctors better understand how brain regions are wired together, such knowledge could lead to better disease treatment.

This story was originally published through the Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine. Read the original publication here.

Prausnitz, a Regents’ Professor, Regents’ Entrepreneur, and J. Erskine Love Jr. Chair in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, is this year’s recipient of the Class of 1934 Distinguished Professor Award. 

“While I may be the focal point, it’s not a recognition of me as an individual. It’s a recognition of everything the team has done,” Prausnitz said. “I know how to do some things, but there are many things I don’t know how to do. That’s why working with others matters. You bring people together, fill in the gaps, and solve the whole problem.” 

The “some things” Prausnitz knows how to do have led to revolutionary medical innovation over a 30-year career at Georgia Tech, where he has led transformative work in microneedle drug delivery, launching 10 companies in the process. 

During that time, Prausnitz published hundreds of peer-reviewed papers, was granted dozens of patents, and advanced his work from early laboratory studies into more than 20 human clinical trials. His research has produced multiple FDA‑approved or clinically tested technologies. 

Understanding Prausnitz’s success starts with his approach to engineering in practice. Science may begin with discovery, but engineering, as he describes it, focuses on taking something uncertain and making it work. 

“One of the things that really distinguishes engineering from science is the work of problem-solving to reach an answer,” he said. “You start with something diffuse and figure out how to put all the pieces together. That to me is a hallmark of engineering.” 

That way of thinking took shape early in his life. 

Read the full story.

It’s not glamorous. It’s not trendy. In fact, it’s downright grubby. But the work that a Georgia Tech researcher and his students are doing is improving campus sustainability, one pound of food waste at a time. 

The Academy recognizes leaders across fields of study who have addressed humanity’s greatest challenges while also gathering knowledge to advance learning and the public good. This year’s class of 252 honorees was elected in academia, the arts, industry, journalism, philanthropy, policy, research, and science.  

García is one of nine honorees in the “Engineering and Technology” division. His research — both in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering where he serves as Regents’ Professor and in the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience where he is the executive director — aligns with the Academy’s service-minded mission.  

“I am inspired to find engineering solutions to serious health conditions to help people,” he said. “As a kid, I developed a musculoskeletal condition that required biomaterial devices to treat. Although imperfect, this treatment allowed me to lead a normal life.” 

Moved by his personal experience, García’s research centers on cellular and tissue engineering, which integrate biological and engineering principles to restore organ function lost to injury or disease. By studying how cells interact with the materials around them, he and his team have engineered biomaterials for the controlled delivery of therapeutic proteins and cells that enhance tissue regeneration, which could speed the healing process for patients.  

His future work will integrate biomaterials with lab‑grown replicas of human organs, known as organoids, that can be used to identify new therapies for a variety of human diseases. These organoids, though smaller and simpler than true organs, can mimic key functions that may help García and his team to find better ways to repair damaged tissues. 

García has spent the past 27 years at Georgia Tech and carries on the legacy of another Academy member — the Petit Institute’s founding executive director Robert Nerem, who was inducted in 1998. García credits his success to the support of his loved ones and the Yellow Jacket community.  

“I am deeply honored and humbled,” he said. “This award is only possible by the unending love and support of family, friends and mentors, my phenomenal past and present trainees, fantastic collaborators, and awesome ecosystem at Georgia Tech.” 

The Academy was chartered in 1780 during the American Revolution by a group that included John Adams and John Hancock. It was established to recognize accomplished individuals and engage them in addressing the greatest challenges facing the young republic. 

Membership has broadened over the years to celebrate excellence in a variety of fields. Honorees have included poet Robert Frost, musician John Legend, and chef José Andrés, who was given this year’s Ivan Allen Jr. Prize for Social Courage.  

García and the rest of this year’s class, which includes actor Jodie Foster, will be inducted in October.  

Students, faculty, and researchers from Georgia Tech and Kennesaw State University gathered on April 8 for a joint workshop between Georgia Tech's NSF Sustainable Development of Smart Medical Devices (SUSMED) program and KSU's Mobility for Everyone (MOVE) Center. The full-day event explored how sustainable design, mobility science, and health technologies are converging to shape the next generation of medical devices.  

In December, The Conversation hosted a webinar on AI’s revolutionary role in drug discovery and development.

Science and technology editor Eric Smalley interviewed Jeffrey Skolnick, eminent scholar in computational systems biology at Georgia Institute of Technology, and Benjamin P. Brown, assistant professor of pharmacology at Vanderbilt University.

Skolnick has developed AI-based approaches to predict protein structure and function that may help with drug discovery and finding off-label uses of existing drugs. Brown’s lab works on creating new computer models that make drug discovery faster and more reliable. Below is a condensed and edited version of the interview.

Let’s start with the big picture. How is AI changing biomedical research and drug discovery, and what is the potential we are talking about?

Skolnick: The upside, potentially, is very large. One of the frustrating things about drug discovery is that, in spite of the fact that the people doing it are extraordinarily intelligent and have done an extraordinarily good job, the success rate is very low. About 1 in 5 drugs will have negative health effects that outweigh its benefits. Of the ones that pass, roughly half don’t work.

In drug development, there are several key issues: Can you predict which target is driving a particular disease? Once this target is identified, how can you guarantee the drug is going to work and isn’t simultaneously going to kill you?

These are outstanding problems in drug discovery in which AI can play an important, though not 100% guaranteed, role. Unlike us, AI can look at basically all available knowledge. On a good day it makes strong and true connections called “insights,” and on a bad day it does what is called “hallucinating” and sees things that are weak and probably false.

At the end of the day, many diseases do not have a cure. Most diseases are maintained, such as high cholesterol or autoimmune conditions. A treatment for cancer might buy you five years, and now you’re in Stage 4 and you’ve exhausted all the standard care drugs. AI can play a role to suggest alternatives where there are none.

Let’s give some basic definitions here. When we use the word drug, we’re talking about a wide range of therapies. Can you explain the range – we’ve got small molecule drugs, biologics, gene therapies, cell therapies.

Brown: We have fairly large molecules in our bodies called proteins. They are like machines that carry out specific functions and interact with one another. Oftentimes, when we’re trying to treat disease, we’re trying to alter functions of specific proteins. Many drugs, like aspirin and Tylenol, are small molecules that can fit into a protein and change its function. Fundamentally, drugs don’t have to just interact with proteins, but this is a major way in which our current repertoire of medications work.

There are also proteins that act like drugs, such as antibodies. When you receive a vaccine for a virus, your body is basically given instructions on how to develop antibodies. These antibodies will target some part of that virus. Your body is creating these big molecules, much bigger than aspirin, to go and interact with foreign proteins in a different way. Gene therapy is a larger step beyond that.

So these modalities – molecule, protein, antibody or gene – are very different types of molecules. They have different scales and rules, so the way you approach designing and discovering them various widely.

Can you briefly explain artificial neural networks, and what the “deep” in deep learning means?

Skolnick: AlphaFold, developed by DeepMind, involved understanding how neural networks worked. They built a network with a lot of inputs, which are stimuli, and outputs with different weights, similar to how your brain actually works. These simple connections, or neurons, have reinforcement learning.

They also created sophisticated neural networks, such as transformers, which do specific things like a special-purpose tool that can learn, and they added a mechanism called “attention,” which amplifies critical details. Super neural networks with transformers is what we call deep learning. These now have literally billions, if not trillions, of parameters.

Essentially, these machines can learn higher order correlations between events, meaning the patterns of conditional interactions that depend on the properties of multiple things simultaneously. In these higher order correlations, AI has the potential to see previously unknown things that are embedded in petabytes (a unit of data equivalent to half of the contents of all U.S. academic research libraries of biological data.

AlphaFold, which predicts three-dimensional, bioactive forms of a protein, has millions of sequences and a couple of hundred thousand structures. It can tell you, based on a particular pattern, what small molecule to design that sticks to a protein to induce some kind of structural shift.

How is this technology being used in biomedical research to understand molecular dynamics or, essentially, the biological processes involved in health and disease?

Brown: In 2013, there was a Nobel Prize for molecular dynamics simulations, computational tools that help you understand the motions of molecules as they move according to physics. There’s a huge body of scientific research built around those ideas.

AI and deep learning are large right now, but it’s worth mentioning that for the last decade and a half, people have been using much smaller machine learning algorithms to help design drugs. A lot of the ideas, such as [using machine learning for virtual screening], are not new and have been in practice for a while.

With AlphaFold’s technologies to help people design proteins and predict their structure, we’ve changed how we think about a lot of these problems. We have this new repertoire of approaches to build ideas around and to start thinking about drug discovery.

From 20 years ago to now, what has today’s AI technology done in terms of scale of change in this process?

Skolnick: A lot of diseases, like cancers, are caused by a collection of malfunctioning proteins. AI now allows us to start to think conceptually about how these diseases are organized and related to each other.

Diseases tend to co-occur. For example, if you have hyperthyroidism, you’re very likely to develop Alzheimer’s. Kind of weird, right? We can look at pieces, but AI can look at all the information, integrate the collective behavior and then identify common drivers. This allows you to construct disease interrelationships which offer the possibility of broad spectrum treatments that could treat whole collections of diseases rather than narrow-spectrum treatments.

Relatedly, AI also can help us understand disease trajectories. Diseases that tend to co-occur often present themselves consecutively. You have disease 1, it gives you disease 2, then gives you disease 3. This suggests that if you go back to the root with disease 1, you may be able to stop a whole bunch of stuff. You can’t analyze millions of trajectories and millions of data without a tool, so you couldn’t do this before.

This holds a lot of promise, but one also must be careful not to overpromise. It will help, it will accelerate, but it is not a substitute yet for real experiments, real clinical validation and trials.

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

The two‑day event took place Feb. 4 – 5, coinciding with the Critical Minerals Ministerial hosted by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 4, which brought together more than 50 nations to strengthen and diversify global critical mineral supply chains. During this ministerial, U.K. Minister Seema Malhotra and U.S. Under Secretary of State Jacob Helberg signed a Critical Minerals Memorandum of Understanding, strengthening bilateral cooperation between the United States and the United Kingdom on critical mineral supply chains. 

These broad efforts are supported by White House Executive Order 14363, which defines the Genesis Mission and aims to accelerate scientific discovery through AI. The order identifies critical minerals supply chain resilience as a national security imperative.

In Atlanta, these themes were brought to life in real time. The GEMs-4 workshop brought together researchers, policymakers, national labs, industry leaders, and workforce organizations from both the U.S. and the U.K. to address shared challenges in technology translation, permitting, investment, and talent development. 

The state of Georgia’s integrated ecosystem, linking research universities, legacy industries, technical colleges, national labs, and public‑private partnerships, served as a case study. Presenters highlighted how existing industrial assets in the Southeast are being incorporated into emerging clean energy and critical minerals supply chains, offering a model for other regions seeking to build capabilities around extraction, processing, and manufacturing.

A U.K. member of Parliament representing Cornwall, where the U.K. has lithium reserves and deep critical mineral expertise, joined the convening, as well as representatives from the U.K. Critical Mineral Association, Camborne School of Mines, and the University of Kent. Together, they explored opportunities and challenges, from a fundamental science to a commercialization perspective grounded in real-world experience. 

The alignment between the ministerial in Washington and the expertise present in Atlanta demonstrated the value of state-level engagement and how national agreements translate into practical collaboration on the ground. 

“The Southeast has the research depth, industrial footprint, and collaborative spirit needed to lead in critical minerals innovation,” said Yuanzhi Tang, Georgia Power Professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, executive director of the Strategic Energy Institute, and founding director of the Center for Critical Mineral Solutions at Georgia Tech. “GEMs‑4 showed what’s possible when universities, industry, and government partners align around shared priorities.” 

Day one featured strategic dialogue on critical mineral resources, innovation pathways, and partnership models. A recurring theme was the co-production of critical minerals alongside major mineral commodities. “Many critical minerals are produced as byproducts of larger mining operations, making it essential to integrate recovery strategies into existing mineral industries rather than developing entirely new extraction systems,” noted Crawford Elliott, professor of geosciences at Georgia State University.

Day two transitioned to field‑based learning, led by Paul Schroeder, professor of geology at the University of Georgia. Participants visited active operations to better understand how regional industrial strengths can support national and international supply chain goals. Schroeder said, “Connecting people to the long-standing mineral extraction economy at the mining and plant sites, where the work gets done with an amazingly skilled workforce, underscores the unique role of Georgia’s place‑based capacity in advancing national and transatlantic supply chain goals.”

Organizers emphasized that resilient supply chains rely on regional capabilities built over time through university collaboration, industry partnerships, and community engagement. With three years of inter‑university coordination now underpinning the GEMS platform, the 2026 workshop demonstrated how the Southeast is contributing actionable models for U.S.-U.K. cooperation.

“Ecosystem-building at this scale requires participation from every part of the value chain, and we are encouraged by the model GEMs presents,” said Rachel Galloway, Consul General at British Consulate General Atlanta. “The collaboration across universities, industry, and government is exactly what enables long‑term impact on both sides of the Atlantic.”

Through focused dialogue and partnership-building, the symposium strengthened transatlantic collaboration, highlighted regional strengths, and accelerated innovation and translation across the critical minerals value chain, from resource characterization and processing to recycling, manufacturing, and deployment.

For more information about the GEMS initiative, visit: https://gems.research.gatech.edu/.

Now in her 11th year at Georgia Tech, Tien considers Atlanta an ideal environment for her work. “Being in a large metropolitan area has been great for collaborating with municipalities and utility providers,” says Tien, who has worked with the Georgia Department of Transportation, the City of Atlanta’s Department of Watershed Management, and Atlanta’s Emergency Response Department.

Tien considers resilience — withstanding and recovering from adverse events affecting communities — a key part of sustainability. Her research focuses on how to design better systems to meet community needs, especially under increasingly hazardous conditions where there is more strain on infrastructure.

Tien serves as principal investigator for a Sustainability Next Seed Grant that is a collaborative effort between Georgia Tech and Oak Ridge National Laboratory to create a Climate Atlas for the southeastern U.S. The project integrates detailed climate data with critical infrastructure asset information, socioeconomic indicators, and stories of climate impacts on communities to support climate mitigation and adaptation. In addition, Tien has led projects to develop a framework to help communities identify the right kinds of flood-control infrastructure. Choosing the correct type of technology now is critical as sea levels and flood risk rise, especially in coastal areas.

Tien says new technologies are leading to a better understanding and design of infrastructure systems, but have also exposed new vulnerabilities. Increasingly, she and her colleagues are considering potential cyberattacks on critical infrastructure, which represent a growing threat that could affect both utility providers and the people who rely on these essential services.

“From a civil engineering standpoint, if you disrupt any one of these systems, it could have a very large impact,” says the Berkeley engineering graduate.

Tien’s expertise extends to Georgia’s coast, where she is part of a team that hopes to increase community resilience in relation to flooding. One project involves installing sea-level sensors throughout Chatham County, the easternmost county in Georgia. The sensors monitor water levels in real time. A Georgia Tech tool helps coastal areas find ideal spots for water-level sensors based on flood risk and population vulnerability.

“We’ve looked at green versus gray solutions,” Tien said, explaining that green solutions could be ponds or basins to slow down water flow during flood events, while gray solutions might include new stormwater pipe systems to quickly move the water away.

Being connected to BBISS through the Sustainability Next Seed Grant program has enhanced Tien’s ability to work cross-functionally. “I definitely collaborate with social scientists, especially on the human and community engagement side of my work,” she says.

A recent project involved developing a new flood-risk curriculum for middle school students in coastal communities. “The program helped build disaster resilience while empowering young people to be better advocates for their communities,” says Tien.

“There’s an opportunity to engage with youth early on and help them better understand their communities. Empowering them in this way means that they can serve as strong advocates for improving their communities into the future.”

In her free time, Tien likes spending time outdoors, hiking, and playing an occasional pickup basketball game. “Being in nature gives you time to think and refresh yourself,” she says.

-- written by Anne Wainscott-Sargent

“The topic of the Suddath Symposium changes every year, which allows the Georgia Tech research community to annually learn about recent advances on a specific topic from across the immense fields of bioengineering and bioscience,” said Nicholas Hud, Regents’ Professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Associate Director of IBB.

The symposium also included presentation of the 2026 Suddath Award, which recognizes outstanding graduate research. This year’s award was presented to Myeongsoo Kim, a Ph.D. candidate in the Bioengineering Graduate Program, for his work at the intersection of cell engineering, cancer treatment, and biomedical imaging. The award is presented each year by members of the Suddath family, including Vincent Suddath, grandson of Bud and a current freshman at Georgia Tech majoring in mathematics.

The symposium and award honor the legacy of F. L. “Bud” Suddath and his lasting contributions to the Institute and the wider Georgia Tech research community.

“Bud was influential in promoting the growth of bioscience research at Georgia Tech, efforts that helped establish IBB in the 1990s,” Hud said. “Bud’s research interests were at the forefront of structural biology, a field that laid the foundation for much of what we know today about biology at the molecular level. It’s fitting that we honor Bud’s contributions by annually providing the Georgia Tech community with the opportunity to learn about research on a timely topic within the biological sciences.”

Symposium co-chairs Tara Deans and Mark Styczynski said that in addition to upholding the legacy of Bud Suddath, the event also provides a unique setting and opportunity for both established researchers and trainees to interact over the course of the two day event. The intimate format of the symposium, which is limited to approximately 100 attendees, and the annual selection of a different interdisciplinary topic sets it apart from other symposia.

“The Suddath Symposium is an amazing opportunity to bring multiple world-class researchers right to our trainees’ front door, to hear about their work and connect with them in a small setting that you can’t really find at most conferences,” said Styczynski, who is a professor in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. “We are really grateful to IBB and the Suddath family for supporting this unique event.”

Deans, who is an associate professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, highlighted how this year’s theme reflects a broader shift in the field.

“This year’s focus on biomedical applications of synthetic biology highlights a major inflection point in the field: the transition from proof-of-concept systems to human health-relevant technologies,” she said. “The theme also reflects increasing convergence across disciplines; synthetic biology is no longer operating in isolation, but it is deeply intertwined with immunology, machine learning, diagnostics, and clinical translation. Addressing real-world biomedical problems requires this kind of integration, and the symposium captured that shift very clearly.”

The Suddath Symposium annually serves as a cornerstone event for Georgia Tech’s bioengineering and bioscience community — connecting researchers, honoring scientific legacy, and spotlighting the next generation of scientific innovation.

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.

A team of researchers led by Ankur Singh, the Carl Ring Family Professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University, has been awarded up to $6 million from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) of the U.S. Department of Defense to accelerate the development of medical countermeasures (MCMs) against deadly biological threats that endanger public health, national security, and warfighters.

DTRA’s mission is to provide solutions that enable the Department of Defense, the U.S. government, and international partners to deter strategic threats. A key priority is advancing new or improved MCMs that can be deployed before or after exposure to biological or chemical agents.

Singh’s multi-year project, Systematic Human Immune Engineering for Lethal Disease (SHIELD) Countermeasures, aims to create a threat-agnostic platform that transforms how respiratory pathogens and toxins are studied. The platform is designed to speed up the discovery, development, and production of immune-based countermeasures.

Singh leads a collaborative team that includes Cornell University’s Matthew DeLisa and Stanford University’s Michael Jewett. Together, they will integrate immune-engineering technologies with advanced cell-free protein synthesis platforms to discover and manufacture protein-based MCMs. Cell-free protein synthesis is a laboratory technique that efficiently produces proteins without relying on living cells, which can be unpredictable and technically demanding when it comes to expressing complex or toxic proteins and scaling production quickly. The team expects the SHIELD Countermeasures platform to reduce the time and cost of MCM development by more than tenfold.

“The foundational science and cutting-edge tools we develop will ignite future discoveries, ensuring a robust pipeline of advanced protein-based MCMs for chemical and biological defense,” said Singh, who also directs the Center for Immunoengineering at Georgia Tech. “This will significantly enhance national security and equip our warfighters with next-generation biodefense capabilities."

Traditional animal models often fail to accurately replicate human immune responses, and standard tissue cultures lack the complexity required to study how immune cells interact with pathogens. In contrast, human immune organoids and immune-competent devices — built from human cells — are emerging as groundbreaking research tools. These systems recreate key immune features, such as lymph nodes and mucosal environments, within three-dimensional or microengineered platforms.

“Many organoid and engineering devices, often called organ-on-chip platforms, lack immune integration,” Singh said. “Because immunity sits at the center of human health, these limitations have broad consequences. Immune-competent organ-on-chip platforms extend this concept by combining human cells with microfluidic engineering that simulates blood flow, tissue barriers, and chemical gradients.”

Singh has previously published studies on a synthetic human immune chip and an immunocompetent lung on a chip, and has also teamed up with DeLisa previously to use synthetic immune organoids for immuno-profiling antibacterial MCMs.

“It’s about being able to test far larger numbers of candidate protein-based MCMs in a single experiment—and to do it much faster,” DeLisa said. “Cell-free systems allow us to produce MCMs at unprecedented speed and scale, but traditional evaluation methods can’t keep up with those numbers. By combining cell-free MCM production with immune organoid technology, we can assess the potency of dozens or even hundreds of candidates at a time and characterize the resulting immune responses within just a few days.”

By integrating immune cells with tissues such as lung, gut, skin, or vascular systems, these devices allow scientists to observe immune responses in real time, including cell migration, inflammation, and interactions with pathogens or therapeutics. As biological threats evolve, the development and deployment of immune-competent platforms will be critical for rapid, effective countermeasures.

DTRA’s investment in Singh’s work highlights the urgent national priority of strengthening U.S. biodefense capabilities. The SHIELD Countermeasures platform and its cutting-edge technologies promise to transform the nation’s response to biological threats and help safeguard communities from biological and chemical attacks.

A philanthropic gift from the family of J.P. Singh is helping researchers at Georgia Tech push the boundaries of biomedical innovation.  

Some of Savannah’s many old buildings are expensive to heat and cool, especially in Georgia’s humid summers. They develop leaks. They need routine maintenance. But how does a building owner know where to begin with renovations or repairs? Enter Lamarr.AI, one of the first companies supported by the Partnership for Innovation’s (PIN) new Community Investment program.

“The Community Investment program is matching up faculty-led, faculty-spinoff startup companies that have technology that could be relevant to a community, a government, or to the civic space,” said Katie O’Connor, PIN’s community investment manager. “The company’s product is something that can help a community in a smart cities kind of way.”

Lamarr.AI fits the bill to a T. Its technology and the company grew out of research at Georgia Tech. Lamarr.AI’s technology uses drones, imaging, and artificial intelligence (AI) to assess a building’s envelope and determine the best ways to make these structures more energy efficient.

“The technology is like giving a building an MRI using drones, infrared and regular images, and our own AI,” said Tarek Rakha, Lamarr.AI’s co-founder and CEO. The drones, he explained, detect missing insulation, water intrusion, air escaping, and physical damage. AI and machine learning translate that information into 3-D models that map the defects.

Read more on EI2 Webpage
 

Across more than 1,100 combined respondents, the study uncovers selective temporal stability in energy preferences. Some attributes—such as support for higher RPS targets, reductions in water use, and preferences for online smart‑meter information—remain relatively stable over time. In contrast, others shift considerably: WTP for increasing the rooftop solar share declines by more than 40%, while WTP to protect monthly credit banking rises more than 200%, reflecting heightened awareness of net‑metering debates and rapid growth in rooftop solar adoption.

Importantly, the study reveals that environmental attitudes, measured through New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) scores, once strongly predicted preferences for rooftop solar and smart‑meter technologies in 2017, but these relationships fade or even reverse by 2023—signaling a shift as these technologies transition from niche, identity‑driven goods to mainstream infrastructure. Meanwhile, environmental attitudes continue to robustly shape preferences for RPS increases and water‑use reductions in both survey waves.

Read Full Story on the EPIcenter Webpage

The paper examines various strategies for enhancing the flexibility of data center energy use. One approach is to use backup power systems, such as uninterruptible power supplies, to support the grid during emergencies. Another method involves rerouting computing jobs to different data centers in other locations to balance energy demand. The authors also discuss implementing smart scheduling techniques that shift workloads to off-peak hours, reducing strain on the grid. Additionally, they highlight adjusting processor speeds by lowering CPU (central processing unit) and GPU (graphics processing unit) clock rates to limit power consumption when needed. Finally, the paper suggests pre-cooling data center equipment to limit the energy required for cooling during peak demand periods. Notably, experimental evidence shows that underclocking GPUs can cut power consumption by 40% with only a 22% performance loss, suggesting technical feasibility for demand-response interventions.

Despite these technical options, the authors find that real-world cost considerations and reliability concerns limit widespread adoption. Data center operators generally do not change their behavior in response to electricity prices, as job revenue far outweighs energy costs under normal conditions. For example, a GPU rented at $2 per hour consumes only $0.04 worth of electricity at average prices, making curtailment unattractive except during extreme price spikes. Surveys indicate that operators are reluctant to compromise reliability or deploy backup systems for ancillary services. Consequently, price-based incentives alone are unlikely to drive meaningful flexibility.

Read more on the EPIcenter Webpage
Listen to a podcast on the research here

Kala Jordan has been promoted to Research Scientist II. With a background spanning biology, health informatics, and STEM education, Jordan brings a multidisciplinary approach to her work. She plays a key role in AI‑CARING, leading studies that support the development of personalized collaborative AI systems designed to improve quality of life for older adults.

Noah Posner has been promoted to Senior Research Scientist. As manager of the Interactive Product Design Lab, Posner focuses on interactive experiences grounded in physical interaction. His research spans CAD‑based prototyping, rapid fabrication, and STEAM education, and he teaches courses in physical prototyping and industrial design.

Peter Presti has been promoted to Principal Research Scientist. Over his 22‑year career at Georgia Tech, Presti has collaborated with major industry partners and federal agencies. His research spans sensor systems, biometrics, wearable computing, signal processing, embedded systems, and integrated hardware‑software prototyping.

Richard Starr has been promoted to Senior Research Scientist. Starr oversees the IPaT Secure Data Enclave, developing and managing the institute’s secure infrastructure for healthcare data. His work ensures campus‑wide compliance with HIPAA, IRB requirements, and partnership agreements.

Andrew Zhao has been promoted to Research Scientist II. Zhao, a Georgia Tech alumnus with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Computer Science, specializes in social computing. His work examines how social media facilitates information flow and connection, particularly around mental health and elections. He supports the CANDOR Portal and AI‑CARING projects, contributing full‑stack development, data pipelines, LLM fine‑tuning, and infrastructure management.

“These promotions are wonderful and well deserved. Hearty congratulations to Andrew, Kala, Richard, Noah, and Peter!” said Michael Best, executive director of IPaT.

“These promotions are a testament to the outstanding capabilities and contributions of IPaT’s research faculty community,” added Maribeth Gandy Coleman, director of research for IPaT.

As new data centers continue to be built and proposed in Georgia, counties and municipalities across the state are considering how to guide this growth. EPIcenter’s data center dashboard provides policymakers, planners, researchers, and community stakeholders with a centralized resource to better understand how data center regulations are being developed and applied across Georgia and the U.S.

“Our Data Center Hub provides Georgia communities with a one-stop shop to understand how their neighbors are managing land-use regulations for data centers,” said Laura Taylor, director of EPIcenter. “It brings together clear, accessible information to help jurisdictions plan when data center growth occurs in their area.”

The dashboard is organized around five thematic areas commonly addressed in data center land-use regulations: Site Planning and Building Design, Infrastructure and Utilities, Environmental and Community Protections, Public Safety and Security, and Lifecycle Governance. Within each theme, users can explore specific regulatory topics and access the relevant ordinances enacted by Georgia communities.

To build the dashboard, EPIcenter researchers conducted a comprehensive review of municipal codes across the state.

“We reviewed municipal codes for about 180 cities and counties across Georgia and identified ordinances that specifically address data center development,” said Yang You, EPIcenter’s research associate who developed the project. “In total, we found 19 data center-specific topics that ordinances tend to cover. We analyzed ordinances across jurisdictions and organized their ordinance provisions into topics such as building placement, setbacks, infrastructure, and environmental considerations to make it easier to compare how different jurisdictions regulate data centers.”

You added that the dashboard also incorporates examples from outside of Georgia. By gathering ordinances from other states and pairing them with Georgia-specific examples, EPIcenter aims to provide a clear framework to help communities efficiently address data center land-use regulation.

The Georgia Data Center Ordinance Hub is available through the Energy Policy and Innovation Center website.

The primary aim of the Atlanta Student Community-Engaged Research (CER) Network is to use a peer learning approach to train graduate students with the skills to co-lead community-engaged and locally focused research, while at the same time building relationships with local community organizations. This approach will help address local sustainability and societal challenges, lay the foundation for community-engaged research programs, and enable young researchers interested in this work to thrive in the Atlanta area. Initial funding for the pilot program was provided by the Atlanta Global Studies Center and the Georgia Tech Provost's Excellence in Graduate Studies fund.

The program received a total of 41 applications from graduate students from Georgia Tech, Georgia State University, and Emory University. Thirty-five master’s and Ph.D. students were accepted into the cohort, spanning a wide range of disciplines, from the humanities, sciences, design,  public health, engineering, and computing. The program has additionally engaged eight senior-level undergraduates from Spelman College to learn about graduate school tracks with community-engaged research opportunities.

This program provides a unique opportunity to learn engagement and leadership skills not typically taught in graduate programs. Students are attending one training a month over the course of the Spring 2026 semester. Here, they learn about the diversity of sustainability-focused, community-based organizations in the area, develop skills to engage meaningfully with community partners in research projects, and improve the ways they communicate to the public about research.

The Georgia Tech Provost's Excellence in Graduate Studies fund will provide a $2,500 stipend to five Georgia Tech students who will work on a research project with a community partner organization. These projects will take place over the spring and summer semesters this year, providing opportunities for graduate students to apply their newly acquired community-engagement skills to on-the-ground research, while also opening a new pathway for Georgia Tech’s engagement with community partners.

Fellows and projects include:

• Irene Jacob, M.S., city and regional planning, will work with the Food Well Alliance to update the implementation strategy for their 10-year community garden survey.
• Ethan Zhao, M.S., human-computer interaction, will work with Historic Westside Gardens to integrate new technologies into their community garden spaces and assess the benefits to the communities they serve.
• Virginia Cason, M.S., sustainable energy and environmental management, will work with Science for Georgia to translate data gathering and analysis into community-centered narratives.
• Sharon Rachel, Ph.D., history and sociology of technology and science, will work with the HBCU Green Fund to examine the environmental and community impacts of data center projects in Atlanta.
• Ella Neumann, Ph.D., interactive computing, will work with the South River Watershed Alliance to document and communicate the history and impact of the City of Atlanta's combined sewer consent decree, and assess if the intended results of the decree have been met.

Applicants expressed their passion for community-engaged research projects and working directly with local community members and organizations:

“Lived experience is just as valuable as academic expertise, and meaningful change only occurs when both work together. I think that this takes approaching problems with a lot of humility, care, and a genuine desire to listen to communities and their needs.” -Virginia Cason, M.S., sustainable energy and environmental management

“I want to do research that stems from a theoretical question, but is feasible in reality and benefits the community. One of the most efficient ways to achieve this goal is through doing research WITH the community.” -Keke Li, M.S., analytics

“Community-engaged research is not only a methodology, but a commitment to partnership, humility, and shared power.” -Grace Fraser, M.S., city and regional planning

“To me, community-engaged research means working with people, not just for them. CER is not only a method but also a mindset. True impact comes when research and community experience grow together.” -Bingjie Lu, Ph.D., civil engineering

The community partners involved in the program are equally enthusiastic about community-engaged research. As Fred Conrad of Food Well Alliance put it, “Food Well has been intentional about engaging our constituents since we began, and this is not only a continuation of that effort, but a significant refinement of how we accomplish that. I think all of us have deepened our understanding of the CER process since we began this journey.”